


WHEN THE DARKNESS COMES

by Delilah1990



Category: Legacies (TV 2018)
Genre: Dark Josie, Dark Magic, F/F, F/M, Hosie Endgame, Jealous Hope, The Originals - Freeform, harsh truths are revealed, no humanity Jade, tribrid hope
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-11-06
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:21:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 13
Words: 48,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23283160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Delilah1990/pseuds/Delilah1990
Summary: When Josie casted the spell to get everyone out of the prison world, she thought the black magic she absorbed had disappeared, but it hadn't. It's trying to take control, and everyday Josie fights it, but it's getting harder to do, she tries to get the help of her family and friends, but they've got their own lives, their own problems. On the night of the twins seventeenth birthday Josie's finally had enough and let's the darkness consume her.
Relationships: Hope Mikaelson/Josie Saltzman, Jade/Josie Saltzman, Landon Kirby/Hope Mikaelson
Comments: 159
Kudos: 472





	1. LET ME OUT

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Josie is having an internal struggle with the darkness still inside her.

**LET ME OUT**

_"Why do you continue to fight me?"_ My darker self asks, but I don't answer, instead I look down. This is the third night in a row my darkness has come to me in my dreams. She wants me to let go, to let her take control, but I can't let her. Last time I let her take control, thankfully no one got hurt, but she was so cold, so emotionless. If she wanted to she could kill someone and not feel a single drop of remorse, so I had to stay in control, and I needed to figure out a way to get rid of the black magic inside of me for good. " _You can't get rid of me. I'm a part of you."_ She says. "I will find a way." She just laughs at me. " _You're too weak. You need me. With me you're stronger, more powerful."_ She steps closer to me. " _You remember the power you had, don't you?"_ She asks with an evil grin. "I do, which is part of the reason you're not getting out." She looks at me angrily. She makes a fireball appear and throws it at me while screaming.

I wake up with a jerk. I'm breathing heavily, I hear my heart beating out of my chest, and there are beads of sweat on my forehead. "That's the third nightmare in a row." I turn and look over at Lizzie, she's laying down on her bed facing me. "Sorry." I apologize. I sit up on the side of my bed. "You should talk to Emma about your nightmares, she could probably help, because no offense, but I'm tired of feeling your fear." Lizzie says. I let out a sigh. "I can't, she's still working with Alyssa, Jade, and Wendy. Apparently she's trying out this simulation box invented by Vardemus." I respond.

"Ew." Lizzie says with disgust.

"The real Vardemus, the one Clarke impersonated. Apparently, he's famous in mystical therapeutic circles."

"Then maybe you should get in touch with him about your nightmares." Lizzie says sternly, then she turns around and pulls her cover closer to her. I close my eyes and take a couple of breaths before standing up and gathering things for a shower. 

Once I gather my things I head over to the shower, strip down, step inside and let the water wash over me. I start thinking about the night we came back from the prison world. Because of all the black magic I had absorbed I had enough power to get us out of Kai's prison world without a celestial event. Once I casted the spell and brought everyone back it seemed as though the black magic I had absorbed was gone, I was back to normal. But later on that night the darker version of myself made an appearance in my dreams for the first time, and ever since I’ve felt her presence within me. It’s faint, but it’s there, and the only way to get rid of her was to get rid of the black magic inside of me.

I hear the door open, a couple of girls enter the showers talking excitedly. I quickly finish up, change, brush my hair and walk back to my room. On my way I spot Hope and Landon walking the hallway hand in hand. "Hey Josie." Hope and Landon say at the same time. I l give them a small smile. "Hi." I say softly as they walk past me. I continue on until I make it to my room. When I enter I hear a sniffle, then I see my sister sit up straight and wipe tears from her eyes. "What are you looking at?." Lizzie asks angry. I set my things down and sit down on her bed. 

"What's going on?" I ask.

"Nothing." Lizzie replies.

"You know I can always tell when something's wrong, so spill...please." Lizzie relaxes a bit.

"It's just...I miss him, I miss Sebastian. I know I shouldn't, he was bad news. He roofed my wine with his blood, then chased me down and confused me for his dead ex, and let's not forget the time he made me think I was crazy. But he was also good. When he looked at me he saw the real me, he was a good kisser and good in bed..."

"I don't need to know that." I interrupt Lizzie."

"Sorry, and then he took dad's place as the anchor. I just don't know how I'm supposed to feel."

"Hey." I grab Lizzie's hands in my mine. "He may have done some bad things, but in the end he did a selfless act." Lizzie nods in acknowledgment, but she still seems a bit sad. "I have an idea, why don't you do something to take your mind off of him for a little while?"

"Like what? It's a Saturday, there's no school, and no new monsters have appeared. There's literally nothing to do."

"Well, it is our birthday next week." Lizzie seems to perk up a bit at the mention of our birthday. "And since last year ended pretty badly..."

"We can throw another birthday party to make up for last year." Lizzie says excitedly.

"Yep, and you can plan it all." Lizzie pulls the covers away and stands in front of me, I turn to face her. 

"I think this is exactly what I need Jo, thank you." Lizzie hugs me and I hug her back.

"What are sisters for?" Lizzie pulls away from the hug. 

"I'm gonna go tell dad." Lizzie runs out of the room and I can't help but smile.

" _Why is it you are always there to comfort her, but when you need to be comforted she's never there?"_ I get startled and stand up, I look around the room, but I'm the only one here.

"That can't be good." 

" _You should let her sort out her own feelings for once."_ I feel a headache come on, I start rubbing my temples.

"Definitely not good."

" _And Hope and Landon flaunting their relationship in front of you, as if you didn't get your heart broken when Landon chose Hope over you. Even though Hope kept who she was a secret from all of you after she came back from Malivore. She basically closed herself off again, just like she had when her parents died."_

"Ok, I'm gonna stop you right there, if you were really a part of me, you'd know that I got over that right before we got sent to the prison world." Something she said suddenly clicks in my head. Right before Hope's dad died, we transferred dark magic that had been inside Hope into her father. "The spell we performed to remove the dark magic from Hope. If I could just find something to put all this black magic inside of, I'll be rid of you." I wait to hear a reply, or some sort of retort, but I hear nothing. I smile at that and quickly head to the library to do research.

I spent two hours in the library and found nothing on the spell to transfer the black magic inside of me. I look up from my book and see Hope leaving the library. "Hope." Hope stops and turns around. I stand and walk up to her. "Hey quick question..." "Sorry Joz, I gotta run. Landon's about to attempt to fly and I'm his spotter." Hope interrupts. "Oh, ok." I turn around and head back to the table I was at. "We can talk later." Hope says, I look over my should and nod in acknowledgment. I sit back down and stare at the books in front of me. The spell I needed had to be somewhere in this library. I let out a sigh and put my head down on the desk. I stay like that for a few moments until I think of something. The spell Lizzie and I performed was told to us by Klaus Mikaelson, if I remember correctly he showed us the spell, it looked like he tore the page out of an old grimoire, and then I think he handed the page over to my dad. The spell may be in my dad's office! I quickly put away the books I got and make my way to my dad's office.

It isn't until I'm standing in front of his door that I realize I hadn't thought this through. If I asked him for the spell he would want to know what it's for. For a moment I consider lying to him, but I quickly disregard that idea, I could never lie to my father, he could always tell when I was lying. Plus I'm a pretty terrible liar. The truth it was then, he wouldn’t be happy that I waited to tell him, but at least he’d be able to tell me if my idea was good. I knock on his door, but I hear no answer. I open the door slowly and peek inside. My dad is in his office, but he’s passed out, with a nearly empty bottle of bourbon, and his wedding photo in front of him. I enter his office and close the door behind me. Even though dad killed Kai, seeing him again opened up old wounds. I walk up to his desk and screw the top back on the bourbon, then I place it in the bottom drawer of his desk. I look around his office unsure where I should begin my search, if he still kept the spell it could be anywhere in this room. I look down at my passed out father. "Where would you put a spell given to you by Klaus Mikaelson?" I notice a stone next to his head. It's spelled to locate items in his office he can't find. I grab hold of it and picture the spell in my head. The stone begins to dim, I hold it over his desk and wave it over each of his desk drawers, it's still dim. I go over to his book shelf and wave the stone over each book, it's still dim until I come across one of my dad's Encyclopedia's where it shines brightly. I take out the Encyclopedia and start flipping thru the pages until I come across a page with the spell I need. I turn and see my dad is still passed out. I take the spell, fold it and put it in my pocket. I put the book back and place the stone by my dad's head. I turn to leave when I hear my dad groan behind me. I turn around, he's just woken up and rubbing his eyes. When he puts his hands down he notices me. "Hey sweetie, did you need something?" He asks. Normally I wouldn't lie, but since he's inebriated he won't be able to tell. I give him and smile and tell him no. He nods his head and I leave his office.

Now that I had the spell in hand, all I had to do was make the necessary adjustments and find an object that would be able to hold the magic inside me without shattering. I go back to my room to get my notebook, when I open my door I see Lizzie and MG sitting on my sister's bed. "Hey, what's going on?" I ask. "MG's helping me plan our birthday party." Lizzie says excited. "Hey Josie." MG says as he waves at me. "Hey MG." I turn to Lizzie. "Hey Lizzie, by any chance do you remember that spell we did on Klaus Mikaelson? The one to move the dark magic in Hope to him?" Lizzie takes a moment to think about it. "Yeah, dad shot Hope's dad with a long ass stake that day. Why do you ask?" Lizzie question. "No reason, just wondering." Lizzie just shrugs her shoulders and continues party planning with MG. I grab my notebook and pen from my desk and leave my room to head back to the library. When I get to the library the first thing I see is Hope and Landon. Landon has his arm around Hope, he has her pulled close to him. They seem to be looking over a book, and on occasion they look up at each other flirting and smiling. I turn and leave the library, the last thing I needed to see were those two flirting with each other. I go over to the common area, but since it's Saturday a lot of the students are there, I decide to go outside over to the dock. It's not a normal hang out, which is weird because it's nice and peaceful.

I take out the page and sit cross legged. I open my notebook and unfold the spell. The spell is just like I remember it, but since magic will be removed from me, Lizzie will have to do the spell herself, so I'll have to account for that. I start taking notes, five minutes into my note taking I hear her. _"That spell isn't going to work."_ I drop my pen and sit up straighter. I close my eyes and take a few calming breaths. " _You can try to ignore me all you want, but I'm a part of you, and I'm not going anywhere_." She says. "Yes you will." I put the spell in my notebook and close it. I power walk back to the school, I'm about to head back to my room when I spot Hope. "Hope." I call out. She turns and smiles at me, she walks in my direction and meets me halfway. "Hey Jo what's up?" She asks. While I was at the docks I realized that most of our magical objects were stolen from the armory. Any magical objects we had left probably wouldn't be able to hold the black magic, but Hope's aunt Freya must have something strong enough to hold it. "I had a question/favor to ask." I reply to Hope's question. "Sure, name it." I open my mouth to speak when I hear Landon call out for Hope. He runs up to us and stands beside Hope. "Sorry to interrupt, but Raf could really use your help." Landon says.

"Why? What's up?" Hope asks Landon.

"He still has no idea how he ended up at the trailer MG found him in. He tries to hide how much it bothers him that he can't remember anything, but I see it. Is there a potion, or a spell that could fill in the blanks? Maybe we could do the spell Josie did to return everyone's memory of you?"

"My Japanese isn't that great, and that's a black magic spell, so Josie's definitely not doing it. I'll figure something out. I've got some grimoires I could look through."

"I'll help. The faster we do this the better." Landon turns to leave. Hope is about to as well, when she remembers there was something I needed to ask her. 

"Sorry Jo, rain check?" I give her a small smile and nod my head yes. Hope turns and runs to catch up with Landon.

" _Seriously, after all you've done for her she doesn't even have the decency to hear you out for five_ minutes." I put my hand on my temple.

"Shut up."

" _Maybe if you stood up for yourself more often people wouldn't walk all over you._ " The headache I feel coming on is worse than the one I had this morning. I rush over to the restroom and wash my face with cool water. When I look up at the mirror I see the darker version of me, I take a step back. " _Let me out and I'll do what you can't_." I shake my head no.

"No, you'll only hurt my friends, or worse you'll kill them." I say to her.

" _I didn't kill anyone while we were in the prison world._ "

"That's because we were in the prison world and we needed their help to get out."

_"True, but come on. Dad is basically a drunk, Lizzie's too focused on herself to notice anything wrong with you and Hope hasn’t given you the time of day. You give, and you give, and all they do is take.”_

“No.”

" _Y_ _ou don’t want to kill them, fine. Then let’s at least make them suffer, they deserve that much._ ”

"Look, dad's just going through a rough patch ok. He just needs to process, and once he does he'll go back to being the over bearing, overprotective, loving father. Lizzie, she's a little heartbroken and now she's just trying to keep busy. As for Hope, girls in love always spend more time with their boyfriends than their friends, it's normal."

" _Stop making excuses for them!"_ I jump back towards the wall. " _Stop being so weak!_ "

"I'm not weak." I whisper.

" _Embrace me like you did in the prison world, and they'll never take advantage of you again._ "

"Leave me alone." I place my hands over my ears so I don't have to hear her. I feel tears coming down my face.

" _Let. Me. Out."_

"Leave me alone!" I yell and the mirror cracks. I start sobbing and slide down the wall until I'm sitting on the floor. I pull my knees towards my chest and place my head on top of them.

"Joz?" I look up and see Jade.

"Jade?" 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think so far.


	2. I'M DONE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> BEFORE YOU READ:  
> If you already started this fic and are skipping ahead to this chapter, just a heads up, I updated chapter 1. I didn't make any big changes, I just decided I didn't like how I wrote Josie still being uncomfortable around Hope and Landon still, so I changed it up.

**I'M DONE**

I hadn't even heard the door open when Jade came in. She immediately closed the door and sat beside me. "Hey, what's wrong?" Jade asks. I open my mouth to answer but nothing comes out, I just continue to cry. Jade pulls me close and holds me, she continues to hold me, even when I've calmed a bit. "Wanna tell me what's going on in that pretty head of yours?" Jade asks and I chuckle at that. "It's...complicated." I simply tell her as I pull away from her embrace. It hits me then that Jade is actually here, not at the old mill. "Wait a minute, what are you doing here? Shouldn't you be at the old mill?" I ask. "I completed the simulation with Ms. Tig, and since I did well I was allowed out of the old mill. I've been given a room and everything. If I continue to do well in our sessions she thinks I'll be able to attend classes soon." Jade says excited. "That's really great Jade, I'm happy for you." I give her a tired smile. "So, since you're here I was thinking maybe you could show me to me room. It's been ten years and a lot of things have changed around here. I might get lost." I laugh at that. "Sure why not." She stands and extends her hand out to me, I take it and she helps me stand. She goes over to the counter to grab my things then she opens the door for me.

I show Jade to her room, once there she invites me to hang out with her for a bit, since I don't feel like being alone I agree to hang out with her. When she opens her door I see standard furniture, two empty beds, and a few boxes. "Ms. Tig said our stuff was saved in storage after we were sent to the prison world. I guess she had some of the vamps bring my things in." Jade says. She places my notebook on her dresser. "Do you need help unpacking?" I ask. "I didn't invite you over to help me unpack, I invited you over to hang out and talk." Jade says as she chuckles. "I don't mind, besides we can still hang out and talk while unpacking." I explain. "Alright, if you insist." Jade and I spend the next hour unpacking and putting away all her stuff. While doing so we talk about everything that's changed at the school since Jade's been gone, and about Jade's session with Ms. Tig. Once we finish Jade hops on her bed letting out a sigh. "Unpacking is hard work without vamp speed."

"But we still got it done." I say to her.

"Yeah." Jade gestures me to join her. I slip off my shoes and lie down next to her. "So, feel like talking about what happened in the restroom?" I don't answer right away, and Jade doesn't push for an answer.

"I still have black magic inside of me." Jade turns over to me.

"What? I thought it disappeared when we left the prison world."

"Me too, but it didn't."

"So, does that mean Dark Josie is returning?" I turn to face Jade.

"She's definitely trying."

"Have you told anyone?"

"Just you."

"Do you plan on telling anyone else?"

"Yeah, I'm just waiting for the right time. Everyone's still kinda reeling from our time in the prison world and Kai."

"I don't know if I said it before, but I'm really sorry about the role I played."

"It wasn't your fault, if anyone should apologize it's my dad. You needed help and instead of helping he sent you to a prison world with my sociopathic uncle."

"I uh, also wanted to thank you. For giving me my humanity back and getting me out of there."

"You should thank Dark Josie for that one, that was all her."

"Well she scares me, so I'm thanking you instead." We laugh at that. We continue talking for hours until we both fall asleep.

** THE NEXT DAY **

For the first time in three days, I didn't dream of Dark Josie. I had a relatively pleasant dream, and as I was waking from said dream I noticed I was laying on something quite comfortable, while being wrapped securely by strong arms. My eyes open wide at this realization. I never went back to my room, Jade and I talked all through the night and I guess I must have fallen asleep in her room, which means I'm sleeping on Jade's chest, and it's her arms that are wrapped around me. I try to gently slip out of her arms, but when I do I see her looking straight at me. "Mornin'." Jade greets, and I immediately feel my cheeks blush. "Morning. I'm so sorry for sleeping in your room, I should have gone back to mine." I apologize. "I don't mind." Jade simply says. I get off her bed. "I should uh, get going." I say as I go over to my shoes and put them on. I leave her room and walk a few steps before I realize I left my notebook in her room. I step back inside and head for my notebook. "Forgot this." I say embarrassed. I grab my notebook and turn back to Jade, who is still laying down on her bed. "I'll see you later." I'm about to leave when I notice her sit up. "Josie?" I turn back to her. "I know you said you'd tell people about your 'complication', when the times right, I won't pressure you into telling them sooner, but you should get some help. You shouldn't handle this on your own." Jade states. "I don't know who else to ask. The only people who could possibly help me is my family, my friends." Jade stands from her bed and walks over to me until we are inches apart. "Well, in that case." Jade grabs hold of my hand. "I hope you consider me your friend, I'd like to help you if you let me." Jade takes a step closer to me. "Um, yeah we-we're friends." I say and Jade smiles at that. "Good, don't be afraid to reach out to me, day or night." Jade let's go of me and goes back to her bed. "Later Joz." I walk out of Jade's room and lean against her door. Was Jade flirting with me?

As I was heading to my room I replayed our conversation in my head over and over again. She was definitely flirting with me. I feel my cheeks redden, and I'm reminded of my childhood crush on Jade. She was not only my first crush, but my first girl crush. She was so cool and she was always nice to me. I remember when she left the school, or rather was sent to my uncle's prison world. I was sad for days, it took nearly a month and lots of ice cream with my mom to get over Jade. Now, ten years later she’s actually flirting with me, I can’t help the smile that forms on my face. I enter my room and place my notebook on my bed, I don’t notice Lizzie staring at me until she clears her throat. I look up and see her by the vanity turned towards me.

”Did you just do the walk of shame?”

”Uh, no.”

”Really? Because you never came back to our room, you’re wearing the same clothes from yesterday, and you just strolled in here with a big grin on your face. You didn’t even notice me.”

”Ok, you make some valid points; however, the basis of the walk of shame is sex, which I did not have. I just spent the night in someone else's dorm room...accidentally."

"And whose dorm room did you sleep in Josette?"

"Jade's." I say softly

"What was that?"

"Jade." I say a bit louder.

"As in your first childhood crush?"

"Yes."

"The one who threatened to torture you in the prison world."

"In her defense her humanity was turned off." I defend Jade as I sit down on my bed. Lizzie stands and sits across from me on her bed.

"Are you developing feelings for her?"

"Maybe."

"Ok, the whole torture thing aside, you do realize that while she looks the same age as us, she is in fact twice our age, and she slept with our uncle."

"I did not need to be reminded of that last part."

"I just want you to be careful if you decide to pursue a relationship with her. Your last two relationships did not end well."

"That's not entirely true. Landon and I are still friends, we managed to work through the whole, choosing Hope over me deal. I even talked things out with Hope so it wouldn’t be awkward between us anymore."

"True, but you still got your heart broken." I let out a sigh.

"I know, I was there. Look as of right now Jade and I are just friends. I don’t plan on rushing into anything, I’m just gonna let things play out. If our friendship develops into something else then so be it, if not I’ll be happy if we’re just friends.”

"Good." Lizzie stands. “Now that that is settled, I’m gonna go over to storage and see what kinda decorations we have in there. Since this party is last minute we’ll have to make due with what we have.”

"I’m sure everything will turn out great Lizzie.” She smiles at me then steps out of our room. 

**A FEW HOURS LATER**

I still hadn't been able to talk to Hope, she was still helping Landon with Raf, so I decided to go back to my dad's office and take a look at the magical items he kept there. I pulled out one of the books and the bookshelf opened, inside was his personal armory. I looked around until I came across the few magical items inside, I didn't want to risk getting caught with them, so I burned each item into memory and closed the book shelf. I went back to the library and did my research on each item my dad had.

A couple hours later I was still in the library reading when I felt someone's hand on my back, I look up and see Jade smiling down on me. "Hey." She greeted me. "Hi." I greeted back. "Is it cool if I join you?" She asks. "Yeah." She pulls out the chair next to me, and I stack up the books scattered on the table. As soon as Jade sits down she takes out a piece of paper and hands it to me. "Why didn't you tell me your birthday was coming up last night?" I take a look at the paper she handed me. It's an flyer to mine and Lizzie's birthday party on Saturday. I read further and see it's a 20's themed party. "Slipped my mind I guess. Lizzie and I weren't gonna do anything, but she seemed kinda down, so to cheer her up I suggested she plan our birthday party since last year things ended pretty badly." I hand the flyer back to Jade. 

"What happened?" Jade asks.

"Our biological mother came back from the dead, then she got possessed and buried me alive, and then later on Lizzie and I had to siphon the magic that had brought her back, so she basically died all over again." I answer.

"Wow, you can never catch a break can you Joz?"

"Apparently not. So, you coming?"

"Of course, wouldn't miss it." I give her a smile and continue reading. Jade scoots closer to me and looks over the book I'm reading. "So, what are you reading?"

"It's just some research on some magical items my dad has in his possession. I think I found a way to get rid of the black magic I absorbed, but to ensure it actually works, I need something to hold it in, something that won't degrade over time like the sand clock." I explain.

"Did you find anything?"

"No, and the spell is useless if I can't find a strong enough object to hold it in." I say as I close the book I'm reading. Jade covers my hand with her own.

"Hey, you'll figure something out, and like I told you before, I'm here to help. Day or night, all you have to do is ask."

"That means a lot Jade." Jade and I smile and stare at each other for a moment before we're interrupted.

"Hey, Jo are you guys really throwing a 20's themed party? If so my aunt Rebekah still has some 20's dresses we can...borrow." I turn away from Jade and see Hope, who's looking between Jade and I. "Am I interrupting something?" Hope asks.

"We're just talking. If you have any questions about the party ask Lizzie, she's planning it."

Hope hums in response and turns to Jade. "Aren't you one of the prison world kids?" Hope sounds a bit judgmental, and there's something else in her voice I can't quite figure out, it sounds like jealousy, but that couldn't be it.

"This is Jade, she use to go to school here." I answer for Jade who's just staring Hope down.

"The one who got sent to the prison world for being a ripper?"

"Hope!" I exclaim as I stand.

"It's ok Josie." Jade places a hand on my shoulder as she stands.

"I'm sure everyone knows what I did ten years ago. I'm gonna go and let you two talk, come by my room later?"

"Sure." Jade smiles at me then turns and leaves. I turn back to Hope. "What was that about?"

"I don't trust her." Hope simply replies.

"You don't even know her."

"Neither do you. How can you trust her so easily?" I don't say anything I just turn away from her. "Oh my god, you like her." I let out a sigh and look back to Hope.

"I had a crush on her when I was a kid, and ever since she got her humanity back, and we escaped the prison world I may have begun to develop feelings for her again." I admit.

”I thought you had a crush on me when you were younger?”

”I did, but Jade was my first crush, you were my second.” Hope nods in response. Since I have you here, I was wondering...”

”I have to go, I just remembered I have something to do.” Hope turns and walks away from me. I let out a groan as I sit back down. I look around the library to make sure no one is around.

"Nothing to say, that's a first."

" _After yesterday I thought it best to stay silent and let you see what I see for yourself._ " I get startled when I hear her voice, she's been quiet all day, I honestly hadn't expected her to respond.

"I see you're still alive and plotting."

" _I'm not plotting anything. I just need you to see that they don't deserve you, your kindness, your selflessness, and once you see that for yourself, maybe then you'll stop defending their actions and actually do something about the way they treat you._ "

"You mean turn into you."

" _You speak as though I'm a separate entity, a third party, but as I've said countless times before I'm a part of you. Once you realize this and accept it, well...I'll let you see for_ yourself." Dark Josie goes quiet. I just sit there looking off in the distance thinking about what she said.

**TWINS ROOM**

After I left the library I headed straight to her room, I figured that's where I would find Lizzie. Maybe she could tell me what's going on with Josie. Why is she being so friendly with someone who basically tried to kill her while she was trapped in the prison world? And to top it all off, she had a crush on her. Jade was her 'first' crush, unbelievable. I arrive at the twins door and immediately enter, startling Lizzie in the process, who is appears to be looking through her entire wardrobe. "What the hell Mikaelson?! Don't you know how to knock?!" Lizzie exclaims. I shut the door behind me and sit on Josie's bed. "We need to talk about Josie, did you know she's being awfully friendly towards one of the prison world kids?" Lizzie doesn't bother to look up from what she's doing when she answers. "You mean Jade? Yeah, she spent the night in her dorm last night." I'm taken back by Lizzie's casual response. "Did they...you know." I ask uncomfortably and Lizzie looks up.

"Josie says they didn't."

"And you believe her?"

"Of course I do, you know as well as I do that Josie's a terrible liar. If she lied about sleeping with Jade I'd know."

"Ok. That-that's good." Lizzie's about to resume what she was doing when instead she stares at me intently. "What?"

"Are you...jealous of Jade?" 

"Pffft. Me? Jealous? No, why would I be jealous?"

"I don't know, _**why**_ would you be jealous?" 

"What are you even doing anyway? Spring cleaning?" I decide to change the subject.

"No, I'm trying to find something that resembles 20's attire, but I may have to go into town and buy something."

"No need. My aunt Rebekah still has some of the dresses she wore in the 20's, I'm sure if I ask her she'll be more than happy to send a few over, so long as we promise not to ruin them."

"Oh my god that would be amazing!"

"I'll give her a call and let her know." I stand and head for the door, but Lizzie's voice stops me from leaving.

"And don't think for a second this conversation is over." I turn and look at her confused.

"What are you talking about?"

"The fact that your jealous of Jade getting closer to Josie."

"I'm not jealous, just concerned. I mean you're the one that told me she tried to torture and kill Josie."

"If you say so."

"I do. Now, if you'll excuse me I'm going to inquire about some dresses." I turn and leave the twins room.

On my way to my room I think about what Lizzie said about me being jealous of Jade growing closer with Josie. I wasn't jealous...was I? I mean yes, I did have a crush on Josie when I was fourteen, but it was only for a week. So, then why did I act like a jealous girlfriend when I saw the two of them together? I have no reason to be jealous, I have a great boyfriend and things are going well between us. Yep, absolutely no reason to be jealous, I'm just a concerned friend who doesn't want to see Josie get hurt. That's all that was nothing more, nothing less.

**SATURDAY, THE DAY OF THE PARTY**

The day of the party had finally arrived. A few of the students, along with myself and Jade were setting up the assembly room. I was excited, this week had been going relatively well. I hadn't heard from Dark Josie since Sunday, Jade and I were growing closer each day, Lizzie seemed to be doing better. The only thing that was off this week was Hope. She seemed to be avoiding me, especially if I was with Jade. Which was rather inconvenient because I really needed her help. I was so deep in thought I didn’t even feel myself slip from the ladder until I fell into Jade’s arms.

"Whoa, you ok?” Jade asks.

"Uh, yeah I think so." I reply.

"You have to be more careful, can’t have the birthday girl getting hurt on her birthday."

"Yeah." I look ahead of me, towards the entrance, Hope is standing there looking directly at me, then she briefly glances at Jade. She looks back at me then turns and leaves. I gesture Jade to let me down and I jog to catch up with Hope. "Hope." She doesn't acknowledge, much less turn around. "Hope." I finally catch up with her and stand directly in front of her. "Hey, I called out to you. Did you not hear me?" I ask.

"I guess not." Hope replies.

"You've been avoiding me."

"I've been busy."

"Oh." I look down at the ground.

"I actually was looking for you though, but you and Jade seemed cozy I didn't want to interrupt." I look back up at Hope.

"You were looking for me?"

"Yeah, that Japanese spell, I'm gonna need it after all."

"Um, sure do you have..." Hope conjures a notepad and pen. "Paper and pen." Hope hands the items to me and I write down the spell and hand them back to her. "When you say the spell make sure to say it with conviction, otherwise it won't work."

"Thanks." Hope turns to leave.

"Hope." She turns her head.

"I really need to talk to you."

"Maybe tomorrow Josie." Hope looks forward and walks away from me. What is going on? Did I do something? The lights of the school begin to flicker on and off. It takes me a minute to realize it's my doing. I close my eyes and take a deep breath in and out, when I open my eyes the lights have stopped flickering. Get a hold of you Saltzman, maybe you're overthinking things, maybe she's just stressed about not being able to help Raf with his memory. I head back to the assembly room where I left Jade.

"Everything ok?"

"Yeah, we should finish putting these ups." I gesture to the decorations. I'm about to climb back on the ladder when I decide it's best I don't. "Maybe I should put the rest of these decorations up with magic."

"I agree, much safer." I extend my hand towards Jade.

"Do you mind?"

"Siphon away." Jade grabs hold of my hand and I siphon from her. I take what I need and with a wave of my hand all the wall decorations are set up. "Sometimes I wish I was a witch." 

"It has it's perks."

"Well, since we're done here wanna grab a bite to eat?"

"I could eat something."

Jade and I leave the assembly room and walk down the hallway towards the cafeteria. Jade and I are talking about the dress I'll be wearing to the party. I'm in the middle of explaining that it belongs to Hope's aunt when I feel someone bump into me. I'm about to apologize when I see who it is that bumped into me. "Watch it Saltzman, just because it's your birthday today doesn't mean you can get away with whatever you want." Alyssa Chang, the witch that sent my family and I into the same prison world as Kai. Despite what she had done she had still been allowed to attend school here, apparently since she had no where else to go she got a free pass to remain here. "You're the one who bumped into me Alyssa." I say to her. Alyssa scoffs at me. "I suggest you stay out of my way, otherwise you might find yourself somewhere worse than a prison world." Alyssa flips her hair and walks away from me. My hands tighten into fists and the school begins to slightly shake. I feels Jade's hands wrap around my fists, I look up at her. "She isn't worth it. She's just a jealous stuck up bitch." I take several deep breaths before I calm down and the school stops shaking. No one seems to have noticed it, or that I was the cause of it. "I need to talk to my dad, you go ahead and grab a bite to eat. I'll catch up with you later." I say to Jade. "Are you sure? I can come with you." Jade asks concerned. "I'm sure." Jade let's go of my hands and hugs me. "Everything's gonna be ok." I wrap my arms around Jade tightly, for some reason I had a feeling nothing was gonna ok." We pull away from each other after a minute and go our separate ways.

I head straight to my dad's office and knock on his door. "Come in." I hear my dad say. Good, he's in his office. I open the door and enter his office. Once inside I close the door behind me and walk up to my his desk. I notice a half bottle of bourbon on my dad's desk, but I don't say anything. "Hey, sweetie. I didn't think I'd see you till later. Happy birthday." My dad says. "Thanks dad. I was hoping to talk to you about something, if you weren't too busy." I say to him.

"Yeah sure. Why don't you take a seat." He says. I sit across from him, and he sits as well. "What's on your mind?" 

"It's Alyssa. I think it's a mistake to let her stay here."

"Josie, I understand if you're still upset with her for sending us to the prison world, but she made a mistake. Besides it wouldn't of been fair if I gave Jade and Wendy a second chance and not her."

"She didn't make a mistake dad, she knew exactly what she was doing when she sent us to the prison world. As for Jade and Wendy, their actually trying to be better. Alyssa just bumped into me in the hallway and threatened me. Whatever sessions she's having with Ms. Tig clearly aren't working." He lets out a sigh and takes a swig of his bourbon. "I understand she has no one else, but surely we can send her to another school, Belgium perhaps?"

"I've already made my decision, she's staying Josie."

"Dad..."

"I'll talk to her, but my decision is final."

"If you do that she'll just accuse me of snitching."

"What the hell do you want me to do?!" My dad exclaims, I sit there stunned. "I'm doing the best I can Josie, so can you please just cut me some slack." He says calmer.

"I'll, uh, I'll see you at the party dad."

I get up from the chair and exit his office. I run to the closest restroom and breath in and out. Luckily for me the restroom was empty because I was breathing quite heavily. First Hope was acting strangely towards me, now my dad’s yelling at me. He’s never yelled at me, not even when he’s upset. The water faucets turn on and I step away from them. “ _Do you see now?_ ” I look at the mirror and instead of seeing myself reflected I see Dark Josie. “No, not today of all days.” The toilets begin to flush on they’re own. “ _Guess you haven’t seen enough._ ” Dark Josie disappears and I’m left with only my reflection. I quickly run out of the bathroom and head to my room.

As soon as I enter I see Lizzie pacing back and forth. When she sees me she walks up to me. “There you are. I’m not sure why you chose today of all days to start having a breakdown, but you need to calm yourself and find your center." Lizzie says to me. "Lizzie I need to tell you something." I say to her. "Later, right now you and I have a party to get ready for." Lizzie grabs my hand and leads me to her bed. "Hope's aunt sent over some of her old dresses she wore in the twenties, pick the one you want to wear and start getting ready." Lizzie says excited. Normally I would put my feelings aside and just do what she tells me, but I'm not sure I can handle going to our party. "Lizzie, I don't think I'll be able to handle the party tonight, can we just stay in? Let everyone else enjoy the party?" Lizzie gives me a 'are you serious' look. "Jo, we can't just not show up to our own party. Whatever is going on with you I'm sure it will pass once we get to our party and start having fun. Now, pick out a dress already." Lizzie practically demands. 

I pick out a dress, and from there I just go through the motions of getting ready. How could Lizzie say that to me? Does she not feel all the emotions coursing through me? Or is she choosing to ignore them? Since all Lizzie has been able to talk about is how epic our party is going to be, I'm gonna go with choosing to ignore my feelings. We help each other get ready, it takes us almost two hours, once we're ready we head to the assembly room. The doors are closed, Lizzie grabs my shoulders and has me face her. She looks over me quickly then asks me to do the same. I tell her she looks perfect, and she complains about how I didn't actually look her over. She turns and faces the double doors, she straightens up, opens the doors with a wave of her hand, and struts inside like she's walking the runway. As soon as she enters everyone yells happy birthday. " _Do you see now?_ " I stare at Lizzie, who hasn't noticed I'm not by her side, waving at everyone. "Yes." Lizzie finally notices I'm not by her side, and turns around and waves me over. I walk over to her and she links our arms together.

"What did I say to you earlier? Find your center and try to have fun." Lizzie says through a smile.

"No." I say calmly.

"What?"

"I said no!" I shout. The music stops, everyone gets quiet and stares at us. I un-link my arm from Lizzie and turn to face her. "Are you so self absorbed you can’t feel, or see what I'm going through, or are you just that clueless?"

"Jo, I don't understand."

"Maybe if you stopped focusing on yourself for once, you'd know what I'm talking about." Lizzie gets quiet, a moment later a look of realization crosses her face. Out of the corner of my eye I see my dad and Hope push past the students to get to us.

"What's going on?" My dad asks.

"Josie, she's full of black magic." Lizzie replies. Both Hope and my dad have shocked looks on their faces.

"Josie is that true?" My dad asks.

"Why didn't you say anything?" Hope questions.

"Funny you should ask that." I turn away from Lizzie to face them completely and I point at me dad. "You've been too drunk to notice anything." Then I point to Hope. "I've actually been trying to get your help all week, but something always came up, and then you just started avoiding me all together." I turn over to Lizzie. "And you, you're just selfish, like always." Each of them has a look of shame on their faces. "Anytime any of you have needed me I've always been there for you, when you've needed help I've helped, no questions asked, but the moment I need something I'm left to my own devices." My dad, Hope, and Lizzie look down on the ground, I see some of the other students do the same thing. "Well, guess what, I'm done. I'm done being nice, I'm done being selfless, but most of all..." Everyone looks back up at me. "I'm done with all of you." I take a step back and close my eyes. "I'm just done." 

"Josie?" I hear my dad run up to me. "Josie what are you doing, open your eyes." He starts to shake me. "Josie open your eyes.” I open my eyes, and when I do my father stumbles back. It's no longer me he sees, but rather my darkness.

"Josie, I know I screwed up, but if you just give me a chance I can fix this. Please let me fix this, this isn't you." Lizzie begs.

"It is now, and you better get use to it." I snap my fingers. My hair is jet black and wavy, I'm wearing a black blouse and skirt.

"And here I thought this party was going to be boring." I turn towards Alyssa's voice.

"Alyssa, I'm so glad you showed up." I extend my had out towards her. " _Motus._ " Alyssa slides directly towards me and I grab hold of her neck and start siphoning from her. She yells out in pain.

"Josie stop!" My dad yells, I hear Hope start an incantation. 

"Freeze." Everyone freezes in place, everyone but Alyssa. She tries to defend herself using magic, but she can't, I've siphoned it all. I let go of her neck and she quickly backs away from me. "You sent me into a prison world with the man who killed my mother, and then you threatened me on my birthday. That wasn't very nice Alyssa." Because Alyssa has no magic and there's no one who can help her, for the first time she's scared. 

"I'm sorry, it'll never happen again. I promise."

"You're right...it won't." I flick my wrist and snap Alyssa's neck, she falls dead on the ground. I let out a sight of relief and turn towards my father, Hope, and Lizzie. "Ding dong the bitch is dead. The world’s is a much better place now." I chuckle, then I walk up to my dad. "I'm gonna go away for a while, don’t follow me." I turn to Hope and Lizzie. "Any of you, but most importantly." I turn back towards my father. "Don't try to fix me, because I've never been better." 

I turn and exit the assembly room, as I'm walking the hallway I hear my name being called from behind me, it's Jade. I stop and wait for her to catch up with me. "Hey Joz, your party is back that way." I turn around to face Jade, when I do she has a shocked look on her face. "Josie? What happened?" I smile at her and step up closer to her. I place my hands on her cheeks and look her directly in the eyes. "You were the only one who was there for me when I needed it. Everyday we were together I grew to like you more and more. However; I liked you a lot better with your humanity off." Jade's eyes widen, I feel my eyes darken as I switch her humanity off. It takes Jade a moment to adjust, then she gives me a wicked grin and pulls me into a passionate kiss. A moment later we pull away from the kiss. "Let's get out of here." She says. "Let's, but first. I snap my fingers, Jade's wardrobe changes from a 20's themed dress, to blue jeans, a blouse, and black leather jacket. She looks impressed by her wardrobe and we turn and leave the school. As we step outside the school I set the school entrance on fire, as we continue walking away from the school I see two hooded figures ahead of me. As I get closer to them they take their hoods off. One of them looks like an ordinary human, the other, not so much. He’s face looks like it’s decomposing and it’s all cut up. “Hello Miss Saltzman, you and I have much to discuss.”


	3. SO, WHAT'S THE PLAN EXACTLY?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What do you get when you have a dark witch and a vampire with no humanity out in the world? Chaos, death, and lots of fire.

**SO, WHAT'S THE PLAN EXACTLY?**

Jade and I look at each other for a brief moment, then back over the decomposing robed figure. “Who the hell are you?” I ask. He takes a couple of steps towards forward and gives me a wicked grin. "I am the master of the Underworld! Ferryman of the Damned! Reaper of souls! The..." He spreads his arms out. "Almighty Necromancer!" Jade and I look at each other again, both of us unimpressed, then we both look back at The Necromancer. "I'm Chad, just Chad." I turn towards him for a brief second, then back towards The Necromancer. "Never heard of you." Jade says. "I have." I say as I step up to The Necromancer, he puts his arms down when I approach him.

"Yeah, he's the one who brought my biological mother back to life, then possessed her to bury me alive. I had nightmares for weeks, and really bad bags under my eyes."

"Sorry, not sorry. You all had what I needed at the time."

"And I’m guessing since you’re having a conversation with me and not trying to bury bury me alive again, I have something you need this time"

"You have dark magic coursing through you, we can use that to raise and control Malivore himself." 

"Yeah, there's only one problem, actually...two now that I think about it." The Necromancer has an impatient look on his face.

"What?"

"Well first off, if we raise him and he gets his dirty hands on Landon, he'd be invincible."

"Oh, no need to worry about that. I have plans for Mr. Kirby." He snarls.

"Is that so." I use my magic to reach into his mind to see what his plans are exactly. I see what he plans, and what he's been up to. Once I get all the information I need I pull out of his mind, when I do he is surprised.

"How did you..."

"Magic, as you said I have it coursing through me. That's quite the plan you've got there, but you'll have to get on with it without me."

"And why is that?"

"Problem number 2, I'm not trying to stick around in this town. I wanna leave and do what I wanna do for once." Jade approaches me and wraps her arm around my waist. "So,good luck Ted." Jade and I walk off. 

"Ahhhh!!! Chad!" Chad steps in front of Jade and I. "You're not going anywhere witch." Jade and I turn around, Jade's eyes go red and black veins appear under her eyes. She's getting ready for a fight. I place a hand on her shoulder, she looks at me and I nod my head no. She relaxes a bit and her eyes go back to normal. I walk up to The Necromancer.

"Or what? You're gonna hurt my family, my friends? Do I look like I care about them anymore." I see his fists tighten. "Your magic may be impressive, but you have limitations."

"Which would be what exactly?" He asks.

"You only have power over the dead." I snap my fingers and bring him to his knees. "While my power is limitless." The Necromancer looks up at me, he's absolutely furious. "Jade and I are gonna go now, if you follow us, or send one of your undead minions after us I will kill you, and this time you won't come back." He looks like he wants to say something, but he's too furious to say anything. "If it makes you feel better, me leaving could actually be quite beneficial to you." He seems to calm a bit.

"How so?"

"Despite my warning, family and friends will still come after me. All their focus will be on me, which means you'll get exactly what you want, a lot sooner than you expected."

"I'll get everything but your magic."

"You don't need my magic to raise Malivore, you just need Landon. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a bus to catch." I turn and walk away, with Jade following beside me. I snap my fingers and release The Necromancer from my hold.

Shortly after we left Chad and The Necromancer Jade and I arrived at the bus stop. So far it looked like the Necromancer had heeded my warning. I also noticed no one from Salvatore was out and about looking for us. I took advantage of this and cloaked Jade and I. They were probably still in shock, but once they recovered the first thing they would try to do is a locator spell to track me. Fifteen minutes later the bus finally arrived and picked us up. Jade and I were sitting in the back of the bus, I was staring outside the window when I felt the seat shake. I turn towards Jade, her arms are crossed over her chest, and her leg is moving up and down. "What's wrong?" I ask.

"I'm hungry." Jade replies.

"Well you can't eat the bus driver yet."

"I know." Jade turns towards me. "Which leaves you."

"No." Jade is about to say something when I raise my hand to silence her. "In case you've forgotten you are a ripper, you have no self control, so no you cannot feed on me, and if you so much as bite me I will turn your blood to vervain and watch as you burn from the inside out."

"That is both brutal and hot." Jade kisses me fiercely. We continue kissing until the bus driver clears his throat.

"Now, I understand you're both teenagers and your hormones sometimes get the better of you, but you are on a public bus and you are not alone." The bus driver says.

"What's your name?" I ask the bus driver.

"Larry."

"Larry." I feel my eyes darken, when I look at Larry's reflection in the mirror in front of him I see he's eyes have turned black as well. "Focus on the road. I don't want to hear another word out of you until we've left this town." I command. Larry doesn't say anything, he just nods his head in understanding and continues to drive the bus in silence. Jade looks at me amazed.

"You can compel humans?" Jade asks.

"I think it's more like mind control."

"What else can you do?"

"I don't know, I've basically been acting on instinct this entire time."

"This is gonna be fun. Whatever this is." Jade pauses for a moment. "So, what's the plan exactly? I mean don't get me wrong I'm down for anything, but I'm assuming you have some sort of plan."

"To be honest I haven't thought past getting out of town. I figured once we were out I'd have more of a plan by then.” Jade takes a moment to contemplate what I just said.

”Well we definitely need to get out of state as well, your dad knows people if we stay here we’ll be found.”

”So, then we go straight to the airport the moment we arrive at the next town, but where do we go from there?"

"We should totally go to Europe."

"Can't, we might run into my mother."

"Man, your family sucks." Jade and I are silent for a moment.

"New York."

"New York?"

"It was my home before Salvatore. It's a bit overcrowded, but we’d basically be hiding in plain sight." I take a moment to think about it.

"I've never been, so I don't see why not." The bus comes to a stop and picks up another passenger. It's a young man who appears to be in his early twenties, he has his head phones in, and he sits in the middle of the bus.

"Well would you look at that, food." I look over at Larry, he's eyes darken when mine do.

"Remember Larry focus on the road." I turn to Jade and nod over to the gentleman who has boarded the bus. She walks up to him and sits behind him. She does nothing at first, then she slowly rises and bites down on his neck, he screams out in pain. I can see him struggle to get out of Jade's grip, but Jade is too strong, eventually she drains him dry and rips his throat out in the process. I look over at Larry, his grip on the steering wheel as tightened, and he has a look of fear in his eyes. I look back at Jade, she positions the young man to make it look like he's sleeping, then she comes back over and sits beside me with his belongings in hand. She looks through his stuff until she finds his wallet.

"I know you have your mind control and I have my compulsion, but it's always good to have cash on hand." Jade takes out the cash from his wallet and continues to look through his things.

As we continue on the bus makes three more stops, but no one else gets on the bus. It takes us two hours to get out of Mystic Falls, Larry tries to talk, but I shut him up right away. He continues to drive until we arrive at the bus stop. When we do a handful of people enter the bus. Jade looks at me with a wide smile. "It's like an all you can eat buffet." She says through her smile. "I'll wait outside for you." I say to her as I exit the bus. As soon as I do I hear screaming, I turn and I see the bus shaking, and blood spattered on the windows. After a minute Jade steps off the bus, blood is dripping down her face and it's all over her clothes, but she doesn't seem to care, she's too focused counting the cash in her hand. "Easiest $200 bucks I ever made." She says with a smile. Then she looks back towards the bus. "We should probably get rid of the evidence, huh." I smirk at her and snap my fingers, the bus catches fire, she walks to my side and puts her arm around my shoulder. "Yeah, this is definitely gonna be fun." We continue to watch the flames until we hear sirens in the distance. I look her over and wave my hand over her, the blood that stained her clothing and skin has disappeared. "Time to go." Jade vamp speeds us away from the fire and we hail down a cab. The cab drives us to the airport, once it does so Jade feeds on the cab driver as well.

We enter the airport and go over to the first available stewardess, Jade compels her to get us two first class tickets to New York. The next available flight is in an hour, so we head straight to our gate and wait to be seated on the plane. When the plane is ready to board, we’re the first ones seated. It takes at least thirty minutes until we take off. We’ve only been on the plane an hour when I notice Jade’s leg shaking. I scoff at her and she turns to look at me. "How is it you spent ten years in a prison world and never learned to control your bloodlust?" I ask. She gives me an annoyed look when she answers. "Because I didn't care to. Why did you decided to go from sweet innocent Josie, to Dark Josie?" Jade asks and I can't help but laugh at that. Jade is confused by my reaction to her question. I clear my throat and begin to explain.

"You say that like I'm two different people, but I'm not. I'm the same person I'm just...like you." Jade looks at me intrigued, so I continue. "I'm still me, I just in a way have my humanity turned off." 

"So, the innocent sweet side of you is still in there?" Jade points at my head. "You just have that part of you turned off?" Jade questions to ensure she understands what I've just told her.

"Yes. The first time you had your humanity off, it was because you no longer wished to feel. I stopped wanting to care about those who didn't give me a second thought, so I stopped."

"You grow more and more interesting, but unfortunately I'm still hungry." We hear someone snore behind us. We both turn around and see a man asleep, mouth open snoring. I look at Jade annoyed.

"Fine, but kill him first." I gesture towards the snoring man.

"My pleasure." Jade grins wickedly and vamp speeds to the snoring man, she bites down on his neck and begins feeding off him. He wakes up and screams in pain, soon everyone else notices Jade feeding off the snoring man and they start screaming too, some even get up and try to get away. When Jade is done with the snoring man she moves on to the next person. I stand up and head over to the captain's cabin. As soon as I'm at the door, it opens and one pilots steps out. The first thing he sees is people running to the back of the plane, then he looks down at me.

"What the hell is going on?" Like with Larry he's eyes darken with mine, I look over at the other pilot and control him as well.

"Ignore everything that's going on, don't call this in, just continue to fly the plane to New York. Continue on as if everything is normal." Both pilots nod and the one standing steps back inside and closes the door. I turn around and a lady who looks to be in her thirties bumps into me. It looked as if Jade had fed on her, but didn't finish.

"Help." She says to me, she has the look of fear in her eyes.

I scoff at her, and with a flick of my wrist I snap her neck. I look down at my clothes, even though I'm wearing black I can still see that the lady got blood on them. I go over to the nearest restroom, there are people blocking it trying to enter, but it appears to be locked. I use my magic to push the people blocking the door to the back of the plane, where Jade has moved on to. I then use my magic to unlock the door, open it and push the people inside outside. I step inside the bathroom and set up a barrier, preventing anyone else from entering. I look myself over in the mirror, with a wave of my hand the blood disappears. I take this moment to look over my new look. My skin is pale, which makes my jet black hair stand out. I darken my eyes until they are completely black. I put my hands on my hips and begin to pose. I do this until I notice the plane has quieted down. I look at the open door and continue to listen until there are no more screams. That's when Jade suddenly appears, she still has a look of hunger on her face. I bring down the barrier so she can walk in the bathroom. Like at the bus station her mouth is dripping with blood, her clothes are stained with it as well.

"You can't still be hungry." I say to her annoyed. I wave my hand over her and the blood disappears.

"I am, just not for blood." She says as she takes a step closer to me, we're only inches apart now. "You wouldn't happen to be a member of the mile high club, would you?" Jade asks in a flirty tone. A smile forms on my face and I answer back in a flirty tone as well.

"No." Jade picks me up and puts me on the bathroom counter, she kisses me as fiercely as she did on the bus.

Only this time there is no one here to interrupt us. Jade pulls away from the kiss to rip my shirt open, she leaves trails of kisses all along my chest, when she reaches my center she spreads my legs, raises my skirt, and tears my underwear off. She immediately devours my center and I lean my head back against the mirror and run my fingers through her hair. She wastes no time at all, and it isn't long before I climax. She raises her head up to look at me and wipes her mouth. "You're turn." I say to her. Using my magic I raise her to a standing position. I remove her jacket and then push her against the wall. I lift her shirt above her head to her wrist and bind her to the wall. She tries to move from the wall, but can't. "Kinky." She says with a smile. I swipe my hand to the left and remove her jeans from her, she's left in nothing but her bra and underwear. I stand and walk up to her. I put my hands on either side of her head, I lean in to kiss her, she does the same and I pull back and kiss her neck instead of her lips. "And now you're teasing." She says. "Not for long." I say against her neck. I take my left hand and lightly trace is down her body, she arches into my touch. When I reach her center I slide my hands in and begin to thrust in and out. It takes me longer than it did her, but eventually I make her climax as well. She leans her forehead against mine for a moment, then I take a step back and unbind her from the wall. She removes her shirt completely and backs me into the bathroom counter. "You truly have grown up Josie Saltzman." Jade lifts me and I wrap my legs over her waist. She kisses me while leading us both out of the bathroom. She slightly slams me against a wall outside the bathroom, then she walks back over to first class. She places me down on the aisle and we continue to have sex for the rest of the flight. Ten minutes before we are scheduled to land we are both lying on our backs, surrounded by dead bodies, breathing heavily.

"I gotta say Saltzman, you gotta lot of stamina for a witch." Jade compliments.

"Don't be too impressed, the moment I find a bed to lay on I'll be passed out." I say to her.

"Speaking of which, where are we staying at once we land, also will you being doing to this plane what you did to the bus?"

"To answer your first question, I'm thinking with your compulsion and my mind control, we can control a hotel staff and stay there free of charge."

"I've always wanted to live a hotel life. Have my bed made for me, room service, massages."

"Sounds like we're in agreement then. As for your second question, of course."

"Don't you think someone at Salvatore will notice a pattern?"

"Well, if you could control yourself we wouldn't have to worry about what happens to the bodies after your feeding frenzy."

"Sure blame it all on the ripper."

"That's exactly what I'm doing." Jade scoffs at me. "I'm open to any new suggestion." I say. Jade doesn't say anything at first, then she sits up after a minute.

"I might have an idea, it's crazy and dangerous, but it's definitely something that could happen."

"I'm listening."

"We get a little closer to the runway and jump off the plane." It's my turn to sit up.

"Excuse me."

"I know this plan sounds crazy just let me finish. Between the two of us we should be able to land safely on the runway, then you set the plane on fire starting with the engines, that way no one will be the wiser, not even your dad.” I contemplate Jade’s plan, it is crazy, but at the same time if this plane lands and catches fire, or if dead people with their throats ripped out are discovered, my dad will know it was us. I stand up and snap my fingers, when I do we’re fully dressed. Jade stands as well.

”Fine, I will cloak and levitate is to safety. I will blow the engine, once I do that vamp speed is out of there.” Jade smiles at me, and we both look out the window, we’re close to the runway now.

”This is our chance.” Jade goes over to the door, I follow and stand behind her. She rips the door open, all the masks drop and an alarm sounds. Jade turns to me and grabs me and pulls me close. "You ready?"

"I won't ever be ready so just jump." She grins at me and jumps off the plane. She holds on to me tight, it takes me a few moments to gain my bearings, we're falling so fast, but eventually I manage to levitate us towards the runway. Once I do that I cloak both Jade and I, we continue to levitate for another two minutes before we safely land on the runway. I look up at the plane, it's close to the runway now, I focus my magic on the engine and blow it up, eventually the whole plane explodes. Jade vamp speeds us outside the airport, when she stops we look back at the explosion.

"I can't believe that actually worked." Jade says.

"I can't believe you actually convinced me to do that." Jade laughs at that. "Let's get out of here and find a nice hotel."

"I know just the place."

Jade hails a cab and tells the cab to take us to the Ritz. I'm impressed by Jade's choice. It takes a while to get to the hotel, but once we're there Jade compels the driver to make him believe we paid him. We enter the hotel and walk up to the check in counter. Jade compels the check in clerk to book us into one of the best suites they have, free of charge. Once we get our keys we take the elevator to our suite, the moment we both lay down on the bed we both pass out.

**THE NEXT MORNING**

I wake up to the shower running, I guess Jade’s awake. I look over at the clock on the nightstand next to me and see it's ten in the morning. I groan and try to go back to sleep, but there's a knock on our door. I let out another groan and get up from the very comfortable bed. When I answer the door I see the check in clerk from last night, along with a very unhappy gentleman. "I was about to go back to sleep, so this better be good." I say to them both. "I'm the manger of this hotel and I'm afraid there's been a mistake, my employee here booked you one of our most expensive suites free of charge. I'm afraid you're going to have to pay for this suite, and if you can't I must ask that you leave." I cross my arms over my chest and take a step towards him, he get's nervous, but tries not to show it. I enter his mind and take control. "My friend and I will not be paying for this hotel, nor will we be leaving. We are going to stay here for as long as we want, and we are going to stay here free of charge. In fact, everything your hotel has to offer is going to be free for us, is that clear?" I ask him and he nods his head yes. "I want to hear you say it." I say. "You both will be staying at this hotel free of charge, everything we have to offer will be free to you and your friend." He repeats. "Good, and unless we request it, no one is to disturb us, is that clear?" I ask. "Crystal." I give him a fake smile. "Good, now go away." I slam the door in his face and turn to see Jade has stepped out of the shower. 

"Someone's a grouch in the mornings." Jade comments.

"It's just jet lag." I say to her as I lay back down on the bed.

"You're not planning on sleeping in are you?"

"Why wouldn't I?"

"Well, for one we need clothes, can't wear the same ones everyday, we also need other supplies, like blood." Jade says as she straddles me. "Come one, we left Salvatore and came to a city where anything is possible, and as a added bonus, we have powers. We can literally do anything we want without having to worry about anything and you want to just lay here in bed."

"I see your point, but..." I place my hand over the towel Jade is wearing. "I think I might need a bit more motivation." I say as I remove her towel. She grins at me and kisses me. 

Once I've been motivated we both get up and take a shower. We get dressed and head out. We hit up a few stores and get more clothes, then we stop and have some lunch. The food is the first thing we've paid for since leaving Salvatore, and even then the food was paid for with stolen money from the people Jade fed on. When we finish our lunch Jade is still hungry, only she's not hungry for food. We empty a couple of our shopping bags and hit up a few blood banks. Once that is finished we head back to the hotel and put the blood bags in the fridge. Jade grabs a couple and starts sipping on it while I look through the clothes we got.

"You know what I was thinking?" Jade asks me. 

"What?" I ask.

"Since your birthday party was kinda a dud, why don't we go out tonight and properly celebrate it." Jade suggests. I'm holding up a blouse and looking at myself in the mirror as I contemplate Jade's idea.

"It wasn't that bad, I got to kill Alyssa."

"Yeah, but you still walked out of your own party before the party even started." Jade approaches me, grabs the blouse and tosses it to the side. She wraps her arms around my waist, brings her head down towards my neck and looks at me through the mirror's reflection. "Come on think about it, we'll go out to a club, go dancing, have some drinks." Jade starts kissing my neck. "It'll be fun." I turn around and wrap my arms around her neck.

"I suppose we did come here to have some fun, so why not?" Jade and I smile at each other and kiss again.

**LATER ON THAT NIGHT**

Later that evening Jade and I found ourselves at a club. Thanks to Jade's compulsion we didn't have to wait in line or pay any fees. As soon as we got inside we went straight to the bar. We started off with a few shots, when we both started feeling tipsy, Jade lead us towards the dance floor. At first we danced apart from each other, then the longer we danced the closer we became. Eventually Jade pulled me into a passionate kiss. After getting bumped into by a few people, Jade lead me out back and pushed me against the wall. We picked up where we left off on the dance floor. My arms were wrapped around Jade's neck, while her hands wondered under my blouse. Jade pulled away from our kiss and started leaving a trail of kisses on my neck, I turned to the side to give her more access. Everything was going perfectly until I heard Jade cry out in pain. I opened my eyes and looked down to see Jade had been shot in the leg with a very familiar bolt. I look up and I see Hope with my father's crossbow in hand, my father, Lizzie, and a man and woman I've never met before.

"Leave it to you three to ruin my fun." I say to them. 

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What did you think of Jade and Josie’s little adventure so far?


	4. WE'RE ALL TO BLAME

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Taking a step back this chapter, before the gang arrives in New York we see what happened after Josie left.

** WE'RE ALL TO BLAME **

The assembly room was filled with students waiting for the twins to arrive. I was standing in the back with Landon, with a gift for the twins in each hand. I was pretty nervous, I had been avoiding Josie all week, and to top it off, when she asked me about it earlier today, I lied. She had been spending more time with Jade lately, there was a rumor going around that they were together. Lizzie swears to me that they aren't, but I'm sure in no time they will be. What's worse about all this is, I don't know why it bothers me so. I should be glad that Josie's found someone. I know when Landon chose me over her it broke her heart, things were awkward for a while, but we managed to work past that. So, why couldn't I get past this?

"Hey, Hope." I look up at Landon. He's dressed in a twenties suit with his hair combed back, he actually looks pretty sexy.

"Yeah."

"Are you ok, you look nervous." Landon observes.

"That's because I am." Landon waits for me to explain. "I've been avoiding Josie this week, the only time I've interacted with her is when I approached her earlier to ask for the Japanese purge spell." I explain.

"Why have you been avoiding her?"

"She's been hanging out with one of the prison world kids, Jade. They've been getting close, and I just don't like it."

"Wow, not gonna lie Hope, you kind of sound like a jealous girlfriend right now."

"What is up with you and Lizzie thinking I'm jealous, that's not it at all. I'm just concerned, when she found out she was a ripper she shut her humanity off so she wouldn't have to feel anything anymore. She had her humanity off for ten years, and when the Saltzman's arrived at the prison world she basically tried to kill Josie the entire time. The only reason her humanity's on now is because of Josie."

"Alright, alright I get it." I take a deep breath to calm down. "Look, it's ok for you to worry, you wouldn't be a good friend if you didn't, but at the same time if she wants to pursue this, you should let her. You kinda owe her that, we both do." I look down at the ground, I hated to admit it, but he was right.

"You're right." I look back up at him. "She deserves this, and we should support her 100%." Landon smiles at me. "But if Jade hurts her Landon I swear..."

"We will both be there for her to comfort her, and then later on you can go all Wonder Woman on Jade's ass." It's my turn to smile. "Until then, stop avoiding her. Give her the present you got her, wish her a happy birthday, and apologize." 

Just then the double doors open and Lizzie struts in like a runway model. Everyone yells happy birthday including Landon and I. It's then I notice that Josie isn't with her. Lizzie seems to notice as well and waves her over. Josie enters the assembly room and Lizzie links their arms together. Lizzie of course is smiling at all the attention, but Josie on the other hand, she's not looking well. "Hey, is it just me or is something wrong with Josie?" Landon asks. Guess he noticed as well. "It's not just you, something's wrong." I reply to his question.

"I said no!" Josie shouts, and the whole room gets quiet.

"I'm gonna go see what's going on." I tell Landon and he nods his head in agreement. I slowly make my way past the crowd of students, I see Alaric out the corner of my eye doing the same. 

"Are you so self absorbed you can’t feel, or see what I'm going through, or are you just that clueless?" I hear Josie ask Lizzie.

"Jo, I don't understand." Lizzie says confused.

"Maybe if you stopped focusing on yourself for once, you'd know what I'm talking about." Alaric and I arrive at the front of the crowd at the same time.

"What's going on?" Alaric asks.

"Josie, she's full of black magic." Alaric and I look in Josie's direction, both of us shocked.

"Josie is that true?" Alaric asks Josie.

"Why didn't you say anything?" I ask. She knows she can come to me...for...anything, oh no.

"Funny you should ask that." She turns towards Alaric and I and points towards Alaric first. "You've been too drunk to notice anything." She then points to me and I already know what she's about to say. "I've actually been trying to get your help all week, but something always came up, and then you just started avoiding me all together." I look down in shame. She has been fighting this darkness for a week, and I was so caught up with helping Landon, and avoiding seeing her with Jade, that I didn't see her struggle.

"I'm done. I'm done being nice, I'm done being selfless, but most of all..." I look back up at Josie. "I'm done with all of you." When she says that I feel my heart break. I want to tell her how sorry I am, beg for her forgiveness, and tell her this will never happen again, but I know nothing I say will make this better.

"Josie?" The sound of Alaric's voice snaps me out of my thoughts. "Josie what are you doing, open your eyes." Alaric is shaking Josie, trying to get her to open her eyes, why are her eyes closed? When she opens her eyes I don't see chocolate brown anymore, I see darkness, Alaric stumbles back.

"Josie, I know I screwed up, but if you just give me a chance I can fix this. Please let me fix this, this isn't you." Lizzie begs.

"It is now, and you better get use to it." Josie snaps her fingers. Her hair turns jet black and wavy, and instead of wearing my aunts twenties dress, she's wearing a black blouse and skirt.

"And here I thought this party was going to be boring." Josie turns towards Alyssa's voice. This can't be good.

"Alyssa, I'm so glad you showed up." Josie extends her had out towards her. " _Motus._ " Alyssa slides directly towards Josie, she grabs hold of her neck and start siphoning from her. She yells out in pain.

"Josie stop!" My Alaric yells, I'm about to cast a sleep spell when Josie shouts 'Freeze,' and everyone does, including me. 

I watch unable to do anything as Josie flicks her wrist and snaps Alyssa's neck, killing her. I see Josie showing no remorse for what she did, I see as she approaches us and tells us she's leaving, tells us not to follow, to not try to fix her. I watch as she turns and leaves the assembly room without sparing a glance at any of us. Then I hear an explosion and smell smoke, but we're all still frozen in place, so we're unable to put out the fire. After what feels like a lifetime the spell finally wears off, I grab Lizzie's hand and we head towards the fire, she siphons from me and we both manage to put out the fire. Once the fire is out both Lizzie and I hear footsteps behind us, we turn around and see Alaric approaching. He looks around at the burnt entrance and falls on his knees. "It's all my fault, I did this." Alaric lowers his head and I notice tears falling from his eyes. Lizzie rushes over to him and hugs him tightly. "No dad, it's mine. I've known something's been off with her, I just chose to ignore it." Lizzie says, crying in her father's embrace.

"You heard Josie." They both look up and turn to me. "We're all to blame. I mean, she actually approached me for my help, and I just...turned her down each time." I say ashamed. We hear more people approaching. Jed, Kaleb, Landon, and MG arrive and see the damage caused by Josie.

"What are we gonna do?" Landon asks.

"I'll tell you what we're gonna do, we're gonna hunt Josie down and make her pay for what she did to Alyssa." Jed says angry.

"Whoa, whoa." MG says. Alaric immediately stands along with Lizzie.

"That is my daughter you're talking about hunting Jed." Alaric states firmly.

"Besides it wasn't actually Josie, it was just the black magic inside her, right?" Landon ask.

"Whatever the reason, we have to find her. We can't let her roam around in Mystic Falls with all that black magic inside her." Kaleb states.

"Hope and Lizzie will do a locator spell in my office in an attempt to find her." Alaric says.

"What about Alyssa?" Jed asks.

"Put her in the nurses office for now, we'll hold a memorial for her tomorrow morning." Alaric answers.

"What about the rest of us?" Landon asks.

"Yeah, maybe we can look for Josie on foot. She's smart, so she'll probably cloak herself from any locator spells." MG adds.

"I'll send the vampires and wolves to look for Josie tomorrow after the memorial. I don't want anyone going after her right now." MG nods his head in understanding, the boys take off, except for Landon.

"Let's go Hope." Lizzie says to me.

"I'll meet you at your dad's office. Just have everything set up." Lizzie nods her head, both her and Alaric head to his office. Landon immediately pulls me into an embrace, I hold onto him tightly.

"It's ok, we're gonna get her back." Landon says trying to comfort me.

"None of this is ok Landon." I pull away from his embrace to wipe a tear from my eye. "This whole week she has been trying to talk to me, to get my help and I just..."

"This isn't your fault Hope, you didn't know." Landon interrupts

"But it is, maybe not entirely, but I'm partly responsible." I wipe more tears that have gathered in my eyes and let out a heavy sigh. "When the Saltzman's were trapped in the prison world I poured all my focus on getting them out. I barely spent anytime with you, and when I did I wasn't always the best girlfriend, so when they got back I told myself I was going to make it up to you, I was gonna focus on you. And then the whole thing with Jade happened...I just needed talk to her once, just once, and all this could have been avoided." Landon places his hands on my shoulders and rubs them up and down.

"Hey that was then, this is now, and right now you need to pull yourself together and help Lizzie find Josie. We need to bring her home and get that black magic out of her, because Dark Josie is a bit scary." I chuckle a little at that.

"You're right." I take a deep breath. "I'll try to talk to you tomorrow."

"Don't worry about me. While you and Lizzie are doing locator spells I'll probably be with the rest of the squad looking for Josie."

"She's not herself Landon, she could hurt you." I say worried.

"I think I'll be ok. She seemed more mad at you, Lizzie, and Dr. Saltzman. Besides I'll have Jed, Kaleb, and MG as back up. Maybe even Raf if he starts feeling any better." Landon states.

"Ok." I concede. "I'm gonna go and try to locate Josie now."

"Good luck." Landon says to me and we kiss each other goodbye.

I head over to Alaric's office. On my way there thoughts of Josie flood my mind. Even if we did find her how were we going to convince her to come back? The most important people to her let her down, and because of that she said she was done with all of us. She willingly let the darkness overcome her, she stopped fighting. And now with all that black magic coursing through her she was powerful, more powerful than any other witch here, probably more powerful than even me. If we don't manage to bring her back I don't know what we'll do.

I enter Alaric's office, as soon as I do I notice him pacing back and forth phone in hand, running his free hand through his hair. I sit on the couch beside Lizzie and give her a questioning look. "Mom called to wish us a happy birthday and see how the party was going, dad just told her the news about Josie." Lizzie replied. I look back at Alaric, judging by the look on his face the conversation with Caroline isn't going very well. I turn back and look down at the table. Lizzie set up everything for the locator spell, I look up at her and raise my hands to her. "Ready?" I ask.

"What's the point? Like MG said, Josie's smart. She's definitely cloaked herself by now." Lizzie says.

"We have to try Lizzie, we have to bring her back. She'd do the same for us." I tell her.

Lizzie nods at this and grabs hold of my hands. We begin the locator spell, but even with Lizzie's blood we don't find her. We do at least three different locator spells, all with the same result. When we're about to start the fourth we hear items being dropped on the floor. We look over at Alaric's desk, he's slid everything off it and now he's sitting with his head in his hands. "I can't believe I let this happen." He says. Lizzie and I look at each other and walk up to Alaric. "Dad?" Lizzie goes to her father's side and places a hand on his shoulder, he grabs hold of her hand with his and holds it.

"Your mother's coming back."

"Was she mad?" Lizzie asks.

"Very." Lizzie is about to say something else, but there's a knock at the door.

"It's not a good time, come back tomorrow." I say, but the door opens anyway. We turn towards the door and see Wendy step into the office.

"Sorry, I know this isn't the best time, but Jade's missing. I've looked for her everywhere and I can't find her. I'm afraid she's gone to look for Josie herself." Wendy explains.

"Why would she do that?" Alaric asks.

"They've kinda been crushing on each other." Lizzie replies.

"Yeah, Jade's been attracted to Josie since the prison world." Wendy adds. I can't help but roll my eyes at that.

"Have you tried a locator spell?" Alaric asks.

"Of course, I got nothing. You don't think Josie killed her too, do you?" Wendy asks, afraid of the answer.

"I don't know, the only way to know for sure is if we find Josie, and we haven't found her either." Alaric let's out a heavy sigh. "Why don't you all get some sleep for now. We've done what we can for now, we'll try again tomorrow." We nod our heads in acknowledgment and step out of his office. Wendy walks ahead of us, Lizzie pauses at the door, so I wait for her.

"Hope?" Lizzie starts.

"Yeah?" I reply.

"Can...can you stay with me tonight, I don't want to be alone."

"Of course. Do you have something I can sleep in?"

"You can borrow something of Josie's." I nod my head and follow Lizzie to her room. She hands me something of Josie's to sleep in. We both change and Lizzie gets underneath the covers of her bed. I look between her and Josie's bed.

"Do you want me to sleep with you, or on Josie's bed?" I ask.

"As much as I need to cuddle, no one cuddles like Josie, so just take her bed." Lizzie replies. I turn off the lights in the room and crawl into Josie's bed.

As soon as my head hits Josie's pillow her scent reaches my nose. I find myself almost bursting into tears, if Lizzie wasn't laying down just inches from me I probably would have. I know the blame isn't solely on me, but I feel mostly responsible for what happened. I keep going back to each time Josie approached me trying to get my help, only for me to put her off. My hands curl into fists, I needed to shift to calm myself down, but I couldn't leave Lizzie alone. Josie going dark, killing Alyssa, and leaving the school affected her the most. They were twins after all, bonded since the womb. So, instead I hug Josie's pillow and inhale her scent again. She smelled like Lavender, so it managed to calm me a bit until I finally drifted off to sleep. 

** TWO HOURS LATER **

" _I had a crush on_ _you_."

" _You had a crush on me?_ "

" _Of course I did. Who wouldn't?"_

_"Well, I had a crush on Josie for a week when we were 14._ "

"Hope...Hope" I wake up to Alaric sitting beside me shaking me awake. As soon as my eyes open he let's go of my shoulders and I sit up.

"What's going on?" I ask wiping the sleep from my eyes.

"I just got a call from Matt." He replies.

"Mayor Donovan? What did he want?"

"A bus caught fire at a bus stop two hours from here."

"So?"

"There were people inside the bus when it caught fire." That gets my attention. "There's nothing left of the people inside except ash and bone. The police talked to a few witnesses, they said they saw two girls walk away from the burning bus, they didn't get much of a description, except one had blonde hair and the other jet black hair." Alaric explains.

"You think Josie and Jade killed those people?" We both turn to Lizzie who is sitting up on her bed.

"I think Jade feed and killed them, and Josie covered it up by burning the bus down." Alaric answers.

"So, then Jade is with Josie." I state.

"Yeah, and there's a good chance Jade has her humanity off again." Alaric says.

"Which means there's gonna be a lot more death to come, and my sister is a part of it." Lizzie crosses her arms in front of her chest.

"Hey, it's the black magic, it's not actually Josie. We can't think that way." Alaric says.

"So, are we going to check it out?" I ask.

"Yeah." Alaric answers.

"I'm coming with." Lizzie says as she removes the covers and sits on the side of her bed.

"Then you two better get dressed and meet me outside. I'll be waiting by the car." Alaric stands and leaves the room. I turn over to stand, but stop halfway through due to Lizzie staring at me.

"What?" I ask her.

"You were saying my sister's name in you sleep." Lizzie replies. I look at her shocked.

"No I wasn't." I deny.

"Yes you were." Lizzie stands in front of me. "Are you crushing on my sister again?"

"What? No, I'm with Landon."

"So?"

"So, I love him."

"You do realize it's possible to fall for two people at the same time, right?"

"Look." I stand from Josie's bed. "I care about your sister, I want to get her back. I admit that, but I'm in love with Landon and only Landon." Lizzie doesn't say anything, she just stares at me for a moment.

"I heard you sniffing my sister's pillow." I open my mouth to say something but nothing comes out. Lizzie smiles victoriously then turns and walks over to her dresser. "You better hurry up and change." Lizzie stops and turns to me. "Want to borrow something of Josie's?" Lizzie asks teasingly.

"I'll change into my own clothes thank you." I turn and leave her room. I walk to my room and slam the door shut. I go to my dresser to look for something to wear.

Stupid Lizzie, I don't have feelings for Josie, we're just friends that's it. Landon is the one I'm in love with, he's the only one I want to be with. I jumped into a pit of goo, just so he wouldn't get possessed by his Golem father. If that doesn't prove that I love him, I'm not sure what does. I finally find a pair of sweats and a shirt to wear, I place them on my bed and remove Josie's night shirt. I'm about to place it down, but I find myself just staring at it. I bring it up to my nose in inhale deeply, I catch my scent, but I mostly catch Josie's. I suddenly realize what I'm doing and put the shirt down. "Pull yourself together, you don't have feelings for Josie, you just...miss her. Yeah you miss her." I put my clothes and shoes on and walk out my door, only to see Lizzie about to knock. "You're ready, perfect. Now let's go." Lizzie says. I close my door and we meet Alaric at the front of the school. We get into the car, which he has already started and take off. 

**ANOTHER TWO HOURS LATER**

Lizzie and I were standing inside the bus looking at what was left of the people inside. Alaric wasn't kidding when he said all that was left was ash and bone. Josie was really proficient when it came to fire spells. Lizzie and I hadn't said anything the entire time. Meanwhile Alaric was talking with the police officers trying to get more information. When he was done speaking with the police he joined us. "Good news, the camera's around this place haven't worked for weeks, so besides the description a couple of witnesses gave, they haven't identified Jade and Josie, the bad news, no one saw where they went." Alaric explained to us. "I doubt they stuck around here. This town's too close to Mystic Falls, plus I'm sure they figured we'd hear about this and come check it out." I comment.

"I agree." Alaric says.

"They could literally be anywhere by now." Lizzie adds. Alaric and I let out a heavy sigh.

"So, what now?" I ask.

"We head back to the school. There's nothing we can do here. We hold Alyssa's memorial tomorrow, then we continue to look for Josie." Alaric explains.

Alaric turns and heads for the car, Lizzie and I follow behind him. It takes us another two hours to get back to the school. When we arrive the boys are waiting for us. When we get out of the car they look to see if we have Josie with us, when they see we don't they ask us what happened. Alaric tells them he will explain everything tomorrow, but for now he wants everyone to go back to bed. I ask Lizzie if she still wants me to stay with her, she says she does under the condition I don't sniff her sister's things. I scoff at her and we head to her room. It takes me a while to fall asleep, images of the burnt bus and bodies popping up in my head.

** THE NEXT MORNING **

" _I miss you. But, um, I won't come back if my being here brings you any more pain._ "

" _You belong here. I want you to stay._ "

I'm facing away from Lizzie when I wake up. Which is probably a good thing considering what happened when I had flashbacks of Josie last night. Why was this happening all of a sudden? I mean yes I miss her, and I hate that she left, but why the sudden trip to memory lane. Was my mind trying to tell me something? As I blink the sleep from my eyes I hear voices in the room. One of the voices I hear is Lizzie's, the other...Josie? I immediately sit up and look over at Lizzie's side of the room. She's sitting by the edge of her bed, and Josie is standing in front of her. But it isn't dark Josie, it's normal Josie, kind Josie. "Josie!" I exclaim. "Actually..." Before Lizzie can finish her sentence I rush over to Josie to hug her, but instead I go right through her. I look over at Josie and Lizzie confused. 

"As I was about to say before you rushed over here..." Lizzie shows me the prism that projects your subconscious. "Josie's not actually here. I couldn't sleep last night, too much on my mind. I know Emma keeps more than one of these prisms in her office, so I left while you were sleeping and got a couple." Lizzie deactivates the prism in her hand, and grabs something from behind her and tosses it to me, I catch it and see it's another prism. "Like you said last night, each of us is to blame for Josie going dark. We each had our reason for not seeing that something was wrong with Josie, I figured it would help bring her back to us if we got to the root of our problems." Lizzie looks down when she says that, and I immediately know what she's referring to.

"I told you I don't have feelings for your sister, I'm with Landon." Lizzie puts down her prism and stands in front of me.

"Just hear me out ok?" I don't speak any further, I wait for her to say what she needs to say.

"I know I don't always pay attention to my sister. That I never see what she's going through until it's too late. And I know people may think it's because I'm 'self absorbed,' but that's not it at all." Lizzie takes a deep breath. "I've always known when something is going on with Josie, we're twins how could I not?"

"Then why don't you ever say anything, of the two of you, you're the loudest." Lizzie was about to get mad, but she managed to calm herself and take a breath instead.

"You could have put that more delicately, but you're right." Lizzie takes a deep breath before continuing. "The truth is, I'm scared of saying the wrong thing."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm good at telling people what they don't want to hear, but need to hear. However; I'm terrible at comforting people. You should know you've witnessed it first hand." I nod my head in agreement. "But Josie, while she may not be as outspoken as me, when it comes to bringing someone comfort, making someone feel better, she always has the right words. She knows when you need space, she knows when you need a hug, she's the best cuddlier I've ever know. I can't count the number of times she's taken care of me, it's basically second nature to her, but when she needs me to be there for her. I don't know how to be, because I'm scared I'll do or say the wrong thing to make it worse, so I choose to ignore it, to do nothing. " Tears begin to stream down Lizzie's face. "I thought by doing nothing, I was doing her a favor, saving her from my bad advice. But in the end all I did was drive my sister to the edge, and now I'm scared I won't get her back." Lizzie's sobs uncontrollably and I immediately wrap her in a hug. I hold her until her sobs lessen, and her breathing has calmed. She pulls away from me and wipes the tears from her face. "I know you think you don't have feelings for my sister, but you do, you just don't realize it." I'm about to say something when she raises her hand to silence me. "First of all you had a crush on my sister when you were fourteen. Second, before we became friends you always got along better with my sister than with me. Third, on our sixteenth birthday you gave Josie a present, but got me nothing."

"Lizzie..."

"I'm not done. Fourth, I heard what you said to Josie the night Landon left, about not staying at the school if it brought **_her_** pain. Lastly, your reaction to her growing closer to Jade. I'm her sister, and even I didn't react as strongly as you did, I mean you even went as far as to avoid her just so you wouldn't have to see them together. If that's not the definition of catching feelings, I don't know what is." I want to say something to defend my actions, but nothing comes out. "If we want to fix Josie, we have to fix ourselves first, so use the prism and sort through your feelings for my sister.

"I thought 'the two of us were never happening'." I quote Lizzie.

"Well, if it helps bring her back, I'm all for Hosie."

"Hosie?"

"That's your ship name; also, make sure to end things with the hobbit first." I shake my head.

"Fine, I'll use the prism, but only so I can prove you wrong."

"Oh, I'm not wrong about this." Before I can retort to Lizzie's statement, a magic note is floating above our heads. Lizzie grabs it from mid air and reads it. "Almost forgot, we're holding a memorial for Alyssa Chang today."

"Right, I guess let's get this over with so we can find Josie." I head for the door.

"Don't forget to use the prism." I wave good-bye to Lizzie and exit her room.

I quickly got ready for the memorial and went to the assembly room, I sat in between Lizzie and Landon who were already there. Alaric spoke a few words and opened the podium for anyone else who wished to speak up. The only people who got up to say anything were Jed and Kaleb, and that was a shit show. Instead of them saying something in her memory they just kept going back and forth trying to one up each other. This went on for five minutes before Alaric separated them and told them to sit back down. Afterwards some of the vampires and werewolves, Jed and Kaleb included, grabbed Alyssa's coffin and headed towards the gravesite we had that we used for Remembrance Day. She was buried, and after a moment of silence we all came back to the school. The super squad and I went straight to Alaric's office to discuss finding Josie.

"So, what happened last night?" Jed is the first to ask.

"From what I can tell, Jade and Josie are traveling together. Jade may have feed on a bus load of people last night, and Josie covered it up by setting it, along with the people inside on fire. When we got there the bus was completely burnt, and the police are unable to identify the bodies because there are no longer any bodies, just ash and bone." Alaric explains to the squad.

"Why would Jade feed on humans? I thought she was doing better?" MG asks.

"Based on what I found out last night, Jade and Josie seem to have developed feeling for each other. We suspect Jade went to find Josie and when she did decided to travel with her. Furthermore, there is a high possibility that Jade's humanity is off again." Alaric explains further.

"So, basically we have two Salvatore students who turned to the dark side." Kaleb comments.

"In a nutshell." I say.

"So, what do we do? How do we bring them back to the light?" Landon asks.

"In Josie's case we have to take the black magic out of her. I have no idea how to do that just yet, but I do have procautions prepared."

"What sort of precautions?" Lizzie asks.

"Anti-magic shackles." Alaric replies. "It should be enough to subdue her and bring her back to the school that way we can figure something out." Alaric finishes.

"What about Jade? If she has her humanity turned off that means she doesn't feel anything right? At least emotionally anyway." Rafael says.

"When it comes to a vampire shutting off their humanity, it's because they don't want to feel a particular emotion. We just have to get to the root of that and make her feel that again. Caroline can help with that, she has experience in that area."

"What if Jade didn't shut off her humanity this time? What if Josie turned it off? She was able to turn it on in the prison world." Lizzie comments.

"Wait, what is she talking about?" Kaleb asks worried.

"In the prison world, in order to save me from Jade, Josie turned her humanity back on." Alaric replies.

"Josie can do that?" MG asks.

"Yes." Alaric responds. MG puts his head down.

"I don't think I'll be able to come with you guys to bring Josie back when we find her." MG says sadly.

"What are you talking about man?" Kaleb asks MG. MG looks up to respond to Kaleb.

"You know how I get around blood, I can't control myself. If she turns off my humanity there's no telling what I'll do. You should probably stay behind too for that matter." MG replies.

"I hate to admit it Kaleb, but MG's right. We already have one vampire with their humanity shut off, we can't be worried about two more." Alaric states. Kaleb is about to protest when Dorian walks in the office.

"You might want to check this out Ric." Dorian says. Dorian passes a tablet to Alaric, it's a news posting. Apparently a plane blew up while attempting to land on an airport runway in New York.

"Why are you showing me this?" Alaric questions Dorian.

"What if Josie did this?" Dorian asks.

"I know Josie loves her fire spells, but why wold she blow up a plane while it's trying to land, it doesn't make any sense." Alaric hands the tablet back to Dorian.

"Josie's under the influence of black magic now, anything is possible." Dorian says as the phone rings. Alaric answers, after a minute he passes the phone to me.

"It's your aunt Rebekah." He says. I quickly take the phone from him.

"Hello."

" _Hello dear, it's your dear auntie Bex._ "

"Hey aunti Bex. Can I call you back later, I'm actually in the middle of something."

" _I'm afraid it can't wait, I just saw the strangest thing and I wanted to check in see if you knew what it was about._ "

"Ok?"

" _I just saw your friend Josie with a blonde in a blood bank I frequent._ " My eyes widen at this revelation.

"Hang on for just a second auntie Bex." I put the phone on speaker so everyone can hear. "Ok, start from the beginning.

" _I have an arrangement at one of the blood banks here in New York. It was about that time for me to restock, I arrived at the bank only to discover someone had picked up my blood. Upon further investigation I saw a blonde vampire with blood that was supposed to be mine, she had approached your friend Josie, only she looked different from the picture you sent me. Her hair was a lot more wavy and it was jet black._ " We all look at each other.

"Listen auntie Bex, that is Josie, and she's with another student from the school, a vampire. She's under the influence of black magic so she isn't herself. You wouldn't happen to know where she is now would you?"

" _Their staying at the Ritz, they just got to their suite. I'm in the lobby now as we speak, would you like me to pay them a visit?_ "

"No, just keep an eye on them. Alaric, Lizzie, and I will catch a flight to New York to bring them back to the school."

" _Alright love. I'm gonna call Marcel for back up. Let me know when you land, I'll keep you informed of your friend's location._ "

"Thanks auntie Bex, you've been a big help. I'll see you soon, love you."

" _Love you too, see you soon._ " I end the call.

"Looks like we're going to New York. Too bad it's not under better circumstances, I could use a new wardrobe." Lizzie says and we all give her a 'really' look. "What?"

Alaric decided it would be best if it was just him, Lizzie, and I who left for New York. We were the cause of all this, it was only right that we were the ones to fix it. After we discussed the game plan I went to my room to pack a few things, while I was in the middle of packing I heard a knock on my door. Just as I turned around it opened and Landon entered. He had a small smile on his face and his hands in his pockets. He went to the edge of my bed and sat on it. "I want to come with you, I want to help. She's my friend too, and before you say anything about it not being safe for me, remember, I'm an immortal phoenix." Landon quickly states. I smile at that and continue to pack.

"For once this has nothing to do with my fear of losing you, but thank you for that reminder." I say with a smile.

"Ah shucks." He snaps his finger.

"Alaric, Lizzie and I have to be the ones that fix this."

"What if this time, I'm the one whose worried about losing you? Josie's pretty powerful Hope, she could really hurt you." Landon says worried. I stop packing and sit beside him.

"Besides Alaric and Lizzie, my aunt and uncle will be there to back me up. They won't let anything happen to me." I take hold of both his hands. "So you have nothing to worry about. Instead you should focus on protecting this school."

"Oh?"

"I'm leaving you in charge. It is officially your responsibility to keep the super squad in check, and keep the school safe from monsters."

"Are you being serious right now?"

"Co-heroes remember? This is your chance to shine, so don't screw it up."

"I-I don't even know what to say."

"Say that you'll be safe, and that you'll be waiting for me to return."

"I promise I will be safe, and I'll be waiting everyday for your return." I lean in to kiss him and he kisses me back. We share a passionate kiss for a minute before I pull away to finish packing.

One of the last items on my bed to pack is the prism Lizzie gave me, I pick it up and decide I don't need it. I know for a fact I love Landon, I don't need a prism to tell me otherwise. I open up my nightstand drawer and put the prism inside. Landon picks up my bag and carries it for me to the front of the school. Alaric and Lizzie are already waiting by the car. He places my bag in the back for me and we kiss one last time. I enter the back seat and Alaric takes off. I notice Lizzie staring at me through the rearview mirror, I simply turn towards the window and stare at the passing scenery until we get to the airport. We have to wait a while for a flight to New York due to the plane that exploded, I update my aunt and remind her to only keep an eye on Josie, not to approach her. A few hours later we finally catch a flight. It takes exactly 2 hours and 9 minutes to get to New York. When we land we go to baggage claim, gather our things, rent a car and head out. I text my aunt to let her know we landed and we're on the road. She texts back that Jade and Josie are at a club, she sends me the address and Lizzie types it in the car's GPS. Twenty minutes later we're parked outside the club, my aunt let's me know that Jade and Josie are going out back, Alaric gets his crossbow, one of his many precautions. We go to the back of the club but don't see anything. I wonder for a second if we missed them, but then the door opens revealing Jade and Josie. Jade pushes Josie against the wall and they start to make out. My blood begins to boil, I grab Alaric's crossbow and shoot Jade in the leg and she cries out in pain. Just then Rebekah and Marcel show up besides me. I notice Lizzie staring at me with her eyebrow quirked, she's about to say something when I interrupt her. "May I remind you I have a crossbow and I'm not afraid to use it." Lizzie raises her hands in surrender and we reveal ourselves to Josie.

"Leave it to you three to ruin my fun." Josie says to us. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An update at last. I meant to finish and upload sooner, but I've been really tired this week. Hope you enjoy the new chapter, let me know what you think.


	5. HOW DO WE GET HER BACK?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Guess whose back?

** HOW DO WE GET HER BACK? **

"You know, I knew you'd find me, I just didn't think it'd be so soon. What's it been Jade twenty-four hours?" I turn and see Jade pull out the bolt. She tosses it to the side and stands next to me. 

"Give or take." Jade replies.

"Although, I wasn't expecting you to bring friends. Who are they?" I ask.

"My aunt Rebekah and uncle Marcel. Their the reason we found you." Hope replies.

"An Original and an upgraded Original." I comment. "You brought the big guns. Gotta say I did not see this coming."

"We didn't come here to hurt you Jo, like Hope said they are the reason we found you. One of the blood banks you hit today, it's the same one Hope's aunt goes to. She recognized you from a picture Hope had sent her." Lizzie explains.

"Picture?" I ask.

"The one I took of us the day we made up." Hope puts down the crossbow and takes a couple of steps towards me. "Remember that day? I told you I wouldn't come back to the school if it brought you anymore pain, but you said I belong there, and that you wanted me to stay. And then Lizzie came back and brought ice cream, we talked for hours and ate ice cream and then afterwards I took a picture of the three of us."

"I remember." I say softly and Hope smiles at me.

"You're not seriously falling for this are you?" Jade asks. I ignore her and walk up to Hope.

"I had just brought back everyone's memory of you. Things were awkward between us because of Landon, but despite that I came up with a way to close the portal without you having to jump back into Malivore." I place my hands on her shoulders.

"That's the real you Jo. You're kind and selfless. You care about you family and friends, you'd do anything to protect them." Hope agrees.

"That was me, until you all broke my heart." My grip on Hope's shoulders tighten and I begin siphoning from her, she yells out in pain, I hear Jade laughing in the background.

"Unhand my niece." Hope's aunt, Rebekah, pushes me away from Hope forcefully. I hit the wall and things start to get a bit blurry. I see Jade vamp speed towards Rebekah only for her to have her neck snapped by the Original. I hear my dead yelling, but I can't make out what he's saying, I pass out shortly after.

**SOME TIME LATER, AT THE HOTEL**

After my aunt Rebekah took out Jade and Josie, Alaric wrapped Jade in vervain soaked chains, and Marcel placed anti-magic shackles on Josie. We decided we'd head back to the hotel they were staying at. Marcel and Rebekah took Jade with them, and we took Josie. When we arrived at their suite we decided it would be best to separate them, they had caused enough trouble. I was sitting next to Lizzie watching a sleeping Josie, when my aunt approached me. "How long do you intend to stay mad at me?" Rebekah asks. After she flung Josie against the wall I hadn't spoken to her. "You didn't have to hurt her." I simply say to her. "What was I supposed to do, let her drain you of your magic?" Rebekah asks rhetorically, but I don't respond. While I wanted the real Josie to come back, I didn't want to hurt her in order to do so. "I'm sorry, it wasn't my intention to hurt your friend. When I heard you scream I just reacted." Rebekah apologizes and I turn to look at her. "Thanks."

"What are we gonna do when she wakes up?" Rebekah and I turn to Lizzie. "We may have restrained her magic, but it still won't be our Josie that wakes up."

"You can start by telling her what you and your subconscious discussed." I suggest.

"Do you think it'll work, I mean is it even a good idea?"

"It's a start. Simply apologizing for what we did, or didn't do, won't be enough to bring her back."

"Did you use the prism I got you?"

"No, I know what I did and why I did it. I don't need a prism to tell me."

"Still in denial of your feelings I see." Lizzie says. Rebekah gives me a questioning look, I just shake my head at her. I turn and see Alaric approaching us.

"Jade just woke up." Alaric looks over at Josie's still sleeping form. "I see Josie's still passed out."

"She must have quite the bump on her head." I give Rebekah a pointed look.

"I already apologized for that." Rebekah defends. I give her a smile and turn back to Alaric.

"You planning on questioning her about Josie?" I ask him.

"Yeah, I figure she might know something that could bring Josie back." Alaric replies.

"Then I'm coming with." I say as I stand.

"I'm coming too." Lizzie states as she stands as well.

"Oh no darling, you're staying right here with me." Rebekah says as she sits Lizzie down. "I need you to tell me what's going on with my dear niece, besides it's probably better if she wakes to a friendly face, rather than the one who threw her against a wall." Rebekah explains.

"Auntie Bex." I begin to complain.

"What? Ever since this Malivore business I hardly hear from you, this is your own fault." I let out a scoff and exit the room. We go over to the living room where Jade is sat up, still wrapped in vervain soaked chains.

"Let me out of these." Jade demands.

"Not gonna happen, not so long as your humanity is shut off. Turn it back on and I might consider it." I say with my hands crossed over my chest. Marcel is standing on my left, and Alaric on my right. Jade simply rolls her eyes as a response. "We have some questions." I begin.

"Well I don't intend on answering them so long as I'm chained up." Jade states.

"How about a compromise then." Marcel says as he reveals a blood bag. Jade's eyes turn red, and black veins appear under her eyes. "You answer our questions, and for every question you answer we give you a sip of blood." Jade's eyes go back to normal and she turns her head. "Come on, you must be hungry, especially with those vervain soaked chains on you." Marcel continues.

"Fine." Jade finally gives in.

"What happened after Josie left the party? Why did you leave with her, and why'd you turn your humanity off again?" Alaric asks.

"I better get more than one sip if I answer." Jade turns to Marcel, he nods his head yes. "I was running a bit late to the party. I wanted to look good for Josie, I had planned on asking her out sometime during the party. Just as I was approaching the assembly room, I noticed Josie was walking out. I called out for her and told her, her party was in the other direction. I hadn't realized she had gone dark until she turned around. She cradled my face in her hands and told me I was the only one that was there when she needed someone." I feel my heart break upon hearing this. I should have been me that was there for her, not Jade. I mentally shake myself of that thought, each of us should have been there for Josie, not just me. I clear my head of those thoughts and continue to listen to Jade. "She said she liked me, but she liked me better with my humanity off." Jade explains.

"So, Josie turned off your humanity?" Alaric clarifies.

"Yep, then we made out, and then I suggested we get out of there. Blood please." Marcel lets Jade sip on the blood bag, while I try my best not to picture Jade kissing Josie.

"How do we get her back?" I ask.

"Who?" Jade questions back.

"Josie." I say with annoyance in my voice.

"Josie hasn't gone anywhere." Jade says nonchalantly, I try to not to react and keep my cool.

"How do we bring back the real Josie, the nice Josie." I clarify.

"Oh." Jade thinks about it for a moment. "I don't know." Jade answers as she shrugs.

"You two have been together for twenty-four hours, she must of told you something." Alaric states impatiently.

"I'd really think about it if I were you." Marcel waves the blood bag in front of Jade.

"She may have mentioned she's kinda like me."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I ask.

"She's basically the witch equivalent of a vampire without their humanity. She said she wanted to stop caring about people who barely gave her a second thought, so she shut that part of herself off." Jade explains. 

"If that's true, getting the black magic out of her might not be enough to bring her back." Marcel comments.

"No, it has to be. Josie's always been smart, she must know a way to get the dark magic out of her, we just need to get through to her long enough for her to tell us." Alaric states.

"Yeah, not sure that's gonna happen." We turn to Jade. "I don't know what you all did, but there's no way she's going back to the way she used to be, at least not for any of you." I bend down to eye level with Jade.

"Then I guess it's a good thing we brought back up." I say to her.

"You don't like me." Jade observes. "You haven't liked me since the beginning, why is that? What did I ever do to you?" I don't say anything, then Jade comes to a realization. "OMG, is it because of Josie? Is it because she like me, even with all that black magic flowing inside of her?" I stand and straighten myself out. "You'll probably like me less when I tell you that in the past twenty-four hours we've had sex countless times." My hands curl into fists. "Yeah, she's got quite the stamina, I bet you'd enjoy her too..." I punch Jade in the face, I'm about to punch her again when Marcel stops me.

"Calm down, she's just trying to get under your skin. Step out of the room and take a breather." Marcel says. I take his advice and leave the room, as I'm leaving I hear Jade request more blood. I open the door and slam it shut. I lean against the wall and slid down. A minute late the door opens revealing Rebekah, she sits on the floor next to me.

"Lizzie told me what happened, and I heard the conversation you had with Jade..." Rebekah starts.

"Are you going to tell me I have feeling for Josie too?" I interrupt.

"You're your father's daughter, I know better than to tell you how you feel. Whatever it is you are feeling towards Josie you'll have to figure out on you own." I don't say anything at first, then I turn to Rebekah.

"Do you think it's possible to have feelings for two people?" I ask her.

"Of course, why do you think arranged marriages were invented?" We both chuckle at that. "But in all seriousness, yes it is possible to have feeling for more than one person. Take Elena Gilbert for example, she had two brothers pining over her. She was with Stefan for sometime until she realized she simply loved Damon more, now they are happily married with a child." I don't say anything, so Rebekah continues. "You should take Lizzie's advice and use that prism thingy to sort through your feelings." Rebekah tells me.

"What if my subconscious tells me I do have feelings for Josie? I don't want to be caught up in a love triangle, and I definitely don't want to choose between two people, especially now with Josie the way she is." I tell Rebekah.

"Just take it one step at a time love, besides for all you know you might not have to make a choice."

"What do you mean?" Rebekah is about to reply when she raises her head.

"Another time, I believe our guest of honor has arrived." Rebekah stands, I do as well. When I turn to see whose coming Caroline comes into view. "Caroline." Rebekah greets.

"Rebekah, Hope. How is she?" Caroline asks.

"The same, but we placed anti-magic shackles on her, so at least she can't hurt anyone." I reply.

"Best go inside now, she's woken up and her and Lizzie aren't having the most pleasant conversation." Rebekah comments.

"Right." Caroline takes a deep breath and opens the door, as soon as she enters Josie and Lizzie get quiet. Caroline smiles at Lizzie, then looks over at Josie. "Hi sweetie."

"Well, look who decided to show up." Josie says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's Caroline! Don't worry there will be more Caroline/Dark Josie interaction in the next chapter. I know this chapter wasn't much, just think of it as the calm before the storm ^.^


	6. YOU'RE NOT MY MOTHER

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Caroline and Josie talk, but things don't go well.

**YOU'RE NOT MY MOTHER**

The last thing I remember before passing out is being tossed to a wall by Hope's aunt, and Jade getting her neck snapped by said aunt. When I finally wake up I'm not sure how long I was passed out for, all I do know is that there is a slight pain in my head, and I'm laying down on a bed. I slowly sit up and raise my hand to my head, only to realize I'm wearing shackles, I finally look around at my surroundings and notice I'm back at the hotel. Lizzie is sitting at the corner, I hear my dad and Marcel nearby, but I don't see or hear Jade, Hope, or Rebekah. When Lizzie see's that I have woken up she approaches me slowly and sits on the edge of the bed. "Hey, sorry about the shackles, it's a precaution." Lizzie apologizes.

"Our father loves his precautions." I sit up completely. "So, where's the rest of the gang?" I question.

"Dad, Jade, and Marcel are in the living room area, and Hope and Rebekah are outside. Dad and Hope were interrogating Jade, let's just said she let a little too much information slip and Hope reacted quite violently, so she's cooling off." Lizzie replies.

"Hope doesn't seem to like Jade much does she?"

"No, and you'll never guess why."

"Tell me." I say as I raise my shackled hands. "After you've released me, then we can gossip all you want." I lie. Lizzie gets quiet and looks down at the bed, after a moment she looks back up at me.

"Sorry Jo. Those aren't coming off until we fix you." Lizzie apologizes.

"Fix me? For the first time in a really long time I'm seeing things clearly. If anyone needs to be fixed it's you Lizzie, and you know it. You've said it countless times before, you're broken, and all those broken pieces are too shattered to put back together." Lizzie looks like she wants to cry, but she takes a deep breath in and continues on.

"I found another one of Emma's prisms. I got one for myself and Hope."

"And I care about this why?"

"Because I figured out what my deal is. I never say anything to you when something's wrong because I'm scared I'll screw it up." I look at her confused. "Don't you see Jo, I'm bettering myself, for you." I stare at her still confused until I come to a realization.

"The day of our party, when I told you I didn't want to go because something was wrong, and you kept insisting I work through it." I see Lizzie visibly shrink into herself. "I had asked myself if you just couldn't feel what I was feeling, or if you were just ignoring me. I suspected it was the ladder, but hearing you confirm it." I get quiet to collect my thoughts. "You've always known when I needed you, you just chose to ignore me."

"Josie." Lizzie starts, I stand from the bed, she stands with me.

"You chose to ignore everything I was going through." I take a step towards her, she takes a step back at the same time. "How many times have I been there for you? Mmm? I have been there for every episode, every heartbreak, I've been there for you for everything." I take another step towards her, and she takes another step back. "Forget merging together, I don't want any part of you. I should just kill you now." Lizzie is up against the wall now, tears streaming down her face. I grip the shackles tightly, I feel magic coming off of them, funny, anti-magic shackles created by magic. I'm about to siphon the magic away when the door opens and non other than Caroline enters the room. Lizzie and I both look at her, neither of us say anything. She looks at Lizzie first and gives her a smile, then she looks at me.

"Hi sweetie." She greets.

"Well, look who decided to show up." I comment. Hope and Rebekah are behind her, soon after my dad appears.

"I think Josie and I need to have a talk, just the two of us." She says to everyone, everyone but Hope leaves us alone.

"It's ok Hope, I got this." Hope nods her head and leaves with everyone else.

"So, wanna tell me what happened?"

"I'm sure dad informed you of everything that transpired on my birthday."

"I want to hear it from you."

"I got tired of having a drunk for a father, a terrible friend, selfish sister, absentee mother." I look directly at her when I say that.

"That's not fair, you know why I haven't been there for you girls as much as I'd like to be."

"We've been dealing with monsters for a year, one of them resurrected our dead mother, and then made her bury me alive. If that wasn't bad enough Lizzie and I had to siphon her away that same night. I got shot and nearly died during the Triad attack, and last, but certainly not least, we almost died yet again when we were sent to the same prison world as Kai. We've always had to go to you, I mean seriously what kind of mother doesn't show up for her own children." She stands up immediately.

"You listen to me young lady. I don't care how much black magic you've absorbed, you don't ever talk to me like that, I am your mother."

"But you're not, you're not my mother." I see tears forming in Caroline's eyes. "You are nothing more than a surrogate." While Caroline's eye's are focused on me, I begin to siphon the magic from the shackles.

"I know I may not be your biological mother, but I am you mother non the less. I love you."

"I know, and I loved you too. But right now as I look at you, I don't feel loved, all I feel is pain. Pain for all the times I needed you to be there, pain for all the times I needed to talk to you, but you were too busy with your research. I'm done feeling this pain." I put my hand over Caroline's heart. "I don't want to feel it anymore." My eyes darken and all the pain I've ever felt, I pass on to her. She suddenly cries out in pain and grabs hold of her chest. She falls on her knees and continues to cry out in pain, everyone suddenly gathers in the room. Lizzie sees Caroline on her knees and runs to her.

"What did you do?!" Lizzie exclaims.

"All the pain I've ever felt, I gave to her." Caroline cries out again and falls to the floor. "Years of pain, plus intense vampire emotion don't really mix well do they?" I say with a chuckle.

"I'm only going to say this once, reverse the spell. The only one allowed to cause Caroline pain is me." Rebekah threatens.

"Or what? You gonna toss me against the wall again?"

"Heed her warning. We don't hurt kids, but if we have to hurt you we will." Marcel warns. 

"You caught me off guard once, it won't happen again." Marcel and Rebekah are about to vamp speed toward me, but I raise my hand and emit a high pitch sound. They stop in their tracks and cover their ears, bending over in pain. After a minute of this I snap their necks with a flick of my wrist.

"Marcel! Rebekah!" Hope rushes to her aunt and uncle.

"Hey, if you have your magic back can you release me from these chains. I'm bored and hungry." I hear Jade say from the other side of the room. I flick my wrist again and hear her chains fall, she vamp speeds to the room and goes into the fridge and gets out a handful of blood bags, she begins feeding off them.

"I don't know who you are, but you're not my sister." Lizzie states angrily.

"Lizzie." Hope starts, but Lizzie continues.

"Look around you Hope, my sister would never do any of this, she'd...she'd never hurt our mom."

"Oh, it is me, but like always you don't listen." Lizzie doesn't say anything she just continues to look at me angrily. "I told you I was done with all of you, and I meant it."

"Well we're not done with you." My dad speaks up.

"We're gonna bring you back Josie." Hope says determined.

"Oh my god can you just kill them already." Jade says while sipping on a blood bag.

"I could, but then they'd miss all the fun." I say, and Alaric and Hope look at me cautiously.

"What do you mean?" My dad asks.

"Did you ever figure out why Raf couldn't remember what happened to him?" I look at each of them expectedly. "No, none of you? Go figure."

"What does Raf's memory lapse have to do with any of this?" My dad asks again. I look over at Hope.

"You know I just realized, Landon isn't with you. You didn't leave him behind at the school did you?" Hope immediately stands.

"Why?" She asks, worry evident on her face.

"Because if you're here, that means he'll be making his move, if he hasn't made it already."

"What are you saying? Just spit it out already!" Lizzie yells.

"The Necromancer is the reason monsters are still coming. The same day Clarke closed the portal, The Necromancer opened another one. He wants revenge against Malivore, apparently when Malivore freed him he took away his powers. As you can imagine he didn't like that, he spent the past year trying to get his powers back. When he did he resurrected one follower, and just recently he resurrected another. Anyone want to guess who the second is?"

"Rafael." My dad guesses.

"Correct. And with you here all he has to do is make Raf get the golden arrow and plunge it through Landon, and when Landon is dead The Necromancer can use him to resurrect Malivore. And once Malivore is resurrected in Landon's dead body..."

"The Necromancer will be able to control Malivore." Hope finishes.

"Ding, ding, ding! Now you all have two choices, you can continue to waste your time trying to fix what isn't broken, or you can go where you're actually needed and save the world. Whatever you decide, just know that if I ever see you again I will kill you." My dad, Hope, and Lizzie stare at me and don't say anything, I turn to Jade. "Let's go." I exit the room, but Jade is still inside so I wait.

"Told ya, she's not going back to the way she used to be, not for any of you. Maybe not ever." Jade chuckles and we both leave the room. "Where to now?"

"Anywhere, as long as it's away from here."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What did you think of Caroline's/Dark Josie's interaction? Let me know in the comments. Just a heads up, it might take me some time to upload another chapter. I have an idea of what I want to do, but as far as writing it down, I'm drawing a blank. So, please be patient with me and don't hate me too much.


	7. I HAVE AN IDEA, BUT YOU'RE NOT GONNA LIKE IT

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gang reels from their latest interaction with Dark Josie, while rushing back to Mystic Falls.

** I HAVE AN IDEA, BUT YOU'RE NOT GONNA LIKE IT **

"We have to get to Landon before the Necromancer does." I say to everyone.

"First we have to stop whatever spell this is from affecting my mom any further." Lizzie says as her mom continues to cry out in pain. Alaric goes to Lizzie's side and kneels down to inspect Caroline.

"She's right Hope, we can't leave Caroline like this." Alaric states. Suddenly both Marcel and Rebekah wake up gasping for air.

"What happened?" Marcel asks.

"Dark Josie is what happened. Where is she?" Rebekah asks as she looks around the room.

"She's gone, she left with Jade." I respond.

"Why?" She asks again, then she turns at Caroline's cry of pain. She vamp speeds over to her.

"Can you call Freya, maybe she knows how to stop this?" Alaric questions Rebekah.

"We don't have time for that." Caroline says through the pain. "Lizzie sweetie, you're going to have to siphon from me until I desiccate."

"What, no." Lizzie cries out.

"Baby, I can't take much more of this. If I continue to feel your sister's pain, I will eventually turn off my humanity to stop feeling it, and believe me you don't want that."

"Your mother's right sweetie." Alaric agrees.

"But..."

"She doesn't have to be desiccated for long, just long enough for the spell to wear off." Lizzie looks over at her mom, Caroline nods her head. Lizzie places her hands on her mom, and siphons from her until she is desiccated. Lizzie starts to cry and Alaric pulls Lizzie into a hug. Rebekah stands and walks over to me.

"What exactly did I miss?" She asks, and Marcel joins us.

"Josie said that the reason the monsters continue to come is because of another monster called the Necromancer. He opened another portal right after we closed the first one. Apparently his plan is to kill Landon, raise Malivore so he can absorb himself into Landon's body, and then he plans on controlling Malivore himself." I explain.

"The Necromancer, you never mentioned that monster before."

"He's the only monster I didn't kill. I tried getting answers from him and he ended up tricking me and being released from Malivore's control." I explain.

"But there's more." Marcel comments.

"Yes, but I'd rather not talk about it. Right now I just want to get back to the school and save Landon, hopefully it isn't too late."

"Well, I'll not let you face this Necromancer on your own. We're coming with you, along with the rest of the family." Rebekah states.

"Rebekah..."

"This isn't up for discussion. Now I hope it isn't so, but on the off chance you arrive back at the school and it is too late..." I turn and look away, I don't want to think like that. "You're going to need all the help you can get."

"She's right Hope. We've been gone for almost twenty-four hours, there's no telling what we'll get back to when we do." Alaric adds.

"Fine, but call the family now. I don't want to have to wait for them when we get back to Mystic Falls." Rebekah takes her phone out and immediately makes her first call to my aunt Freya. Marcel takes out his phone as well.

"I'll buy us tickets to the first flight out of here." I nod my head and go over to the bed and sit down.

"Hey." I look over to Alaric. "No matter what happens, we'll save Landon." I stare at him for a moment, then look down at Lizzie, she fell asleep in his arms.

"Do you think we lost Josie for good?"

"Don't let what Lizzie said get to you Hope."

"But she kinda had a point Alaric. The real Josie, our Josie would never do any of this. I mean look what she did to Caroline, my aunt and uncle, not to mention she kept vital information from us."

"Josie's under the influence of black magic, as soon as we get it out of her we'll have our Josie back." I let out a sigh. "Don't give up on her Hope, she wouldn't give up on you." I'm about to say something when Marcel interrupts.

"I got us tickets, but we have to leave now if we want to catch the plane on time." Marcel states.

"I'll take some blood bags to revive Caroline, we'll revive her at the airport, hopefully by then the spell will have worn off." Rebekah says.

Alaric wakes Lizzie up and informs her we're leaving, Lizzie stands and Alaric picks up a desiccated Caroline, Rebekah grabs a few blood bags, while Marcel leaves ahead of us to compel as many people as he can to ignore the desiccated vampire Alaric is holding. We head straight to the cars we arrived in and drive to the airport. Once we park the cars Lizzie immediately gives her mom blood. Caroline wakes, she grabs her chest expecting to feel pain, only to be relieved when she felt nothing. When we arrive, the airport is in chaos, from what I could gather, someone had ripped off the heads of several people. I turned to look at everyone, we all knew who the cause of this was, but we didn't have the time to investigate it. Rebekah compelled the lady at the counter to get us the tickets Marcel paid for, when we arrived at the appropriate gate Marcel compelled the employees there to let us board the plane, shortly after Caroline compelled the pilot to fly us straight to Mystic Falls. The entire flight there Caroline hadn't spoken a word, just occasionally rubbing her chest. Lizzie had tried several times to comfort her mother, each time Caroline only offered her a small smile in return.

Two hours later we arrived at Mystic Falls. We headed straight for the school, when we arrived we immediately knew something was wrong. The entire school was deserted, and the school was quiet. Caroline, Marcel, and Rebekah tried to listen to see if they could hear anything, at first they heard nothing, then a second later they said they heard laughter. Caroline said it was coming from Alaric's office, we immediately ran straight to his office, we burst through the doors and were immediately shocked by what we saw. The Necromancer was sitting in Alaric's chair, with a man I had never seen before, and Raf by his side.

"Well, well, well. If it isn't the tribrid and her friends. So good of you to finally show up." The Necromancer says with an evil grin.

"What did you do with the students?" I question him.

"Nothing, they scurried off the moment he started attacking them." The Necromancer gestures behind us. We turn around and see Landon, there is no sign of recognition in his eyes, just a blank expression. "Hope meet Malivore, Malivore meet the tribrid Hope." The Necromancer introduces us, I immediately turn back to him. 

"What did you do to him?!"

"Didn't the dark witch tell you?" He asks as he stands and walks in front of the desk. "I mean that is why you have returned, because she told you of my plan. Speaking of which." The Necromancer looks around. "Where is she?"

"Bring him back." I demand.

"No can do I'm afraid."

"Bring him back, or I'll make whatever torment you went through with Malivore seem like a day at the beach." He just laughs at that.

"Even if I were to take that threat seriously, it can't be done. The boy was created to be absorbed by Malivore, and once absorption is complete there's no going back. Your boyfriend is lost forever I'm afraid." I begin to cry as I turn back to see Landon with the same blank expression on his face. "Now as much as I enjoyed this reunion, I'm afraid it must come to an end now. Malivore, be a dear and kill them all."

Landon makes fire appear on both his hands and shoots us with it. We scatter away, but Landon continues to hit us with fire balls. Marcel and Rebekah attempt to rush him, but he floats in the air, causing them to collide into each other. I step closer to Landon and look up at him. "Landon." He continues to throw fireballs. "Landon!" I shout and he stops and looks at me. "I know you're in there, that you can hear me. Please, fight him. Fight Malivore, fight the Necromancer's control over you. Come back to me." I plead with him. He continues to stare at me blankly for another moment before he throws a fire ball towards me. I don't move, I'm frozen in place. The fire ball is about to hit me when I'm pushed out of the way. I continue to look up at Landon, watching as he continues his attack. This can't be happening, first Josie, now Landon. I space out, I know I should help my family, my friends, but I just can't. After a few moments everything goes dark, I guess I blacked out. When I come to the first person I see is my aunt Freya.

"Hey, you're finally back with us." Freya says.

"Wha-what happened?" I ask her.

"Alaric thinks you went into some sort of shock." I try to remember what happened before I blacked out. As soon as my memories came flooding back I instantly regret regaining them.

"Landon." I say his name sadly. I feel Freya wrap me in her arms. I wrap my arms around her as well, I stay like that until I notice I'm somewhere unfamiliar to me. "Uh, aunt Freya, where are we?" Freya and I pull away from each other.

"The Lockwood mansion. As soon as Kol and I landed we called Rebekah, she told us you were here along with the rest of the students."

"All the students are here?" I look up at the sound of footsteps. Alaric, Caroline, Kaleb, Jed, Lizzie, and MG come into view. I notice right away MG seems to be hiding something behind his back. As soon as they approach me Alaric turns to MG.

"Tell her what you told us." MG takes a deep breath and looks at me.

"Shortly after you all left I noticed Raf acting...off. I didn't think much of at first, until I saw him sneaking into Dr. Saltzman's office and stealing the golden arrow. After that I started following him around without him noticing. He asked Landon to come with him somewhere, I followed them to some crypt in the Mystic Falls cemetery. That's when the Necromancer revealed himself to Landon, I was about to vamp speed Landon out of there, but I was frozen in place right away. Turns out the Necromancer revived Alyssa too."

"But we didn't see in her my dad's office." Lizzie interrupts.

"Maybe he has her running an errand or something. All I know is I couldn't move and it was because of Alyssa." MG stops and puts his head down. I knew what came next, but I needed to hear MG say it.

"MG." He looks up at me. "I need to know what happened, please...continue." MG nods his head.

"The Necromancer made me watch as he made Raf stab Landon with the golden arrow. As he was dying Landon pleaded with Raf to snap out of it, but Raf was under the Necromancer's control, he couldn't hear him. Landon fell on the ground, I listened as he's heart beat slowed down, until it stopped completely." There are tears in MG's eyes. "Raf then dragged MG over by the new pit and tossed him in there. The pit began to boil, and then it started to take shape. It took the shape of Landon, only it wasn't Landon anymore. The Necromancer told him to attack the school, fire wings appeared and he flew out of the crypt. Alyssa, the Necromancer, and Raf left shortly after Landon did. I don't know if he forgot about me, or didn't think I was worth the time, but they just left me there. As soon as the spell wore off I ran up to the pit, there was nothing there but this." MG reveals the golden arrow with Landon's blood still on it. "I tried Hope, I really did try to save him." I burst into tears and grab MG and pull him into a hug.

"I believe you." MG cries into the hug as well.

"So, Landon is Malivore now." MG and I pull away at Lizzie's statement.

"That's what it sounds like, but I'm not entirely sure I haven't...I haven't been around." Alaric, Lizzie, and I look at Caroline briefly. We know right away she's thinking about Josie.

"MG thinks he found a way to save Landon though." Kaleb states and we all look at him.

"How?" I ask.

"Just a second." MG hands the golden arrow to Kaleb and vamp speeds out of there, he returns a second later with a notebook, Lizzie instantly recognizes it.

"Hey, that's Josie's. MG did you go snooping around in our room while we were gone?!" Lizzie exclaims.

"Before you say anything about me being creepy, hear me out. After you left a thought popped in my head. The moment Josie realized the black magic hadn't left her she would have tried to figure out a way to get it out of her. So, I went in to the twins room and looked around at Josie's side of the room to see if I could find anything, and I found this." MG hands it to me. Freya and Lizzie come to my side. "It looks like she might have found something she just needed..."

"She needed some help." I finish for MG. I close my eyes for a moment, can't dwell in the past right now, I have to save Landon. I open my eyes and look at the notes she wrote down, I also notice an old piece of folded paper. I take out the paper and unfold it and immediately recognize the spell. "This is the spell Josie and Lizzie used to move the Hollow from me to my dad." I say

"What?" Alaric and Caroline say at the same time, then they both approach me and look at the spell.

"But that was in my office." Alaric says.

"She must have sneaked in there to get it." Caroline offers.

"No." Alaric says as he looks down in shame. "She didn't have to sneak into my office, I was past out drunk most of the time." Alaric looks back up at Caroline.

"While this will certainly work for Josie, I'm afraid it won't work for Landon." Freya states. Alaric and Caroline turn their attention to my aunt.

"Why?" I ask.

"This spell is made to remove magic, and Malivore is not magic." Freya explains.

"So, what the Necromancer said is true, nothing can be done to bring Landon back. He's just...gone."

"I'm sure there is a way, but I don't think we'll find it in time. We still don't know what that mad man has planned now that he has Malivore under his control."

"So, then what do we do? That golden arrow may have worked on Landon, but I doubt it'll work on Malivore himself." Jed says. I look at the golden arrow Kaleb is still holding.

"I need some air." I say before I leave everyone and go outside. I knew exactly what needed to be done to defeat Malivore, but it would require doing something I had been trying to avoid for as long as possible. My thoughts are interrupted by the sound of footsteps approaching me. I turn around and see it's Lizzie that's approaching me.

"I know that look Mikaelson, you're about to do something heroic and self-sacrificing." Lizzie states.

"I have an idea, but you're not gonna like it. None of you are."

"I knew it. What are you gonna do? Offer yourself to Malivore as a host?"

"No, I'm going to activate my vampire side."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After this chapter, if all goes well I wanna say there will be four more chapter left before I wrap this fic up. Also, I uploaded a new fic a few days ago called TVD Paradox, if you haven't already please check it out and let me know what you think so far. I know what I want to do for the first three chapter, but after that I'm drawing a blank, if you have any ideas please feel free to share them. I hope you enjoy this update along with my new fic.


	8. IT'S TIME TO END THIS

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The battle with Malivore begins.

** IT'S TIME TO END THIS **

**"** Na-ah, nope, there's no way I'm letting you kill yourself!" Lizzie exclaims and I shush her.

"Hey, any louder and my family will hear you." I tell her.

"Good, maybe they'll be able to knock some sense into you." I let out a heavy sigh and sit down on the ground, Lizzie takes some calming breathes before she sits down next to me. "I'm sorry for yelling, I know you wouldn't stay dead, but still...you'd have to die and I don't want you to." I wrap my arms around Lizzie as a sudden thought comes to mind.

"I didn't want my dad to die either when he decided to take the Hollow into himself. But I get it now, why he did what he did."

"What do you mean?"

"There wasn't enough time to find another solution, if there had been, I know in my heart my dad would have found it."

"Why the sudden walk down memory lane?"

"Because I find myself in a similar situation as him. I don't want to activate my vampire side Lizzie. I want nothing more than to focus on somehow finding a way to get Landon back. But between Josie going dark and doing god knows what right now, and the Necromancer in control of Malivore, I don't think I have much of a choice."

"But the whole reason the Necromancer has control over Malivore is because he absorbed himself into Landon's dead body. I know that sounded harsh, I didn't mean it to be, sorry."

"I know."

"What if you activate your vampire side, somehow manage to get your blood into Malivore and it doesn't work because he's in the body of your dead boyfriend. Once again, sorry for the harshness."

"Because the first time I jumped into Malivore, while I didn't technically destroy him, the pit did disappear. If I become a full Tribrid and defeat him this time the same thing could happen again. If Malivore disappears, then the Necromancer will no longer have control over him."

"So, you're not even sure this will work and you're still willing to go through with this?" Lizzie questions.

"If there is another way, please tell me and I'll do it." Lizzie says nothing. "That's what I thought."

"Dad's gonna be so mad at you."

"Not as mad as my family."

"So...how are you going to do this? Cut your wrists, stab yourself, jump off a cliff, drink poison?" I close my eyes and mutter a spell. "Hope?" I continue muttering the spell until I finish, I open my eyes and wait for it to take effect. "What did you do?" Suddenly I feel my heart start to slow down and I start to sway. I'm about to fall on the ground when Lizzie catches me and places me on the ground. She's speaking to me, but I only hear muffled noises, eventually I feel my heart stop beating and I close my eyes and give into the darkness.

**A FEW HOURS LATER**

I wake up feeling groggy. My vision is a blur, and I hear noise all around me, but it's muffled. I slowly sit up, I feel a pair of hands on me trying to steady me. The person is trying to talk to me, it takes me a little while until I realize it's Lizzie that's speaking to me. "Hope, hey can you understand me?" Lizzie asks. It's takes a minute longer for my vision to clear up, when it does I see Lizzie with a worried expression on her face. "Aren't you a sight for sore eyes." I comment.

"Save that for Josie." I chuckle at that. But then it suddenly get's very noisy. I can hear a ton of frantic heartbeats, screaming, the sound of destruction. "Hey, try to focus on me ok." I look up at Lizzie. "Breath with me." I do as Lizzie instructs and breath with her. After a moment everything quiets down. "How did you know what to do?"

"I didn't. I just thought, what would Josie do?" I nod my head at that. 

"Is something going on? I kept hearing screaming, and erratic heartbeats." Lizzie suddenly looks nervous.

"It's the Necromancer. He let Landon along with Alyssa, Raf, and that other guy loose on the town. The older students; along with your family, and my mom and dad are doing their best to try to stop him."

"I need to complete my transition."

"I know." Lizzie offers me her wrist.

"Lizzie, no." I swat her wrist away from me.

"You need to drink blood Hope. The only other people in here are the kids and a couple of the teachers." Lizzie turns behind her and grabs the golden arrow. She slices her hand open and offers it to me again. "I trust you. Now hurry up and drink my blood so you can save the day." I look down at her blood and feel my mouth water. I take her hand and drink her blood. After a moment I drop her hand and stand. I feel powerful and...complete. "You ready to kick ass?"

"Definitely."

Lizzie and I leave the Lockwood mansion and head into town. As soon as we get there we see destruction all over the place. Cars flipped over and on fire, stores that look like they've been broken into, the super squad trying to fight off Alyssa, Landon/Malivore, and Raf. I close my eyes and take a deep breath trying to think of what to do, after a moment I open my eyes and look to Lizzie.

"We need to get rid of the Necromancer, so long as he's in control of them every hit we land will be useless."

"You realize if we do that Alyssa and Raf will die, for real this time, and Malivore will be free to do whatever."

"I know, but right now the Necromancer is our biggest threat, we get rid of him everything else will be easy...ish."

"Alright, MG and I will handle the Necromancer, you handle Malivore, Landon, you handle bird boy." Lizzie says frustrated.

I nod my head and we both charge forward. Lizzie grabs hold of MG and they head for the Necromancer, while I tackle Landon to the ground. He looks up at me, there's still no sign of recognition on his face. "This is your last chance Landon. Please, if you're still in there fight it, fight your father." Landon simply stands and begins to float, he then charges towards me and grabs me. He flies further away from the fight and then drops me, I stand up and wipe the dust off my clothes, I look up and see him circling around me. 

"Hope Andrea Mikaelson!" I turn and see my aunt Rebekah walking towards me. "What the bloody hell were you thinking?!"

"Aunt Rebekah, I know you're mad, and when this is all over you can ground me for all eternity, but right now..." I look up and see Landon coming towards me again. "Right now's not a good time." I grab hold of Landon this time and slam him down on the ground. I get on top of him and punch him twice. "Come on Landon fight your father!" I say to him, but he continues to stare at me blankly. I punch him two more times. "Landon!" I scream at him.

He just shoots me with a fire ball to get me off him. He begins to walk towards me, as I stand getting ready to defend myself I notice him stumble a bit. I look over to where Lizzie and MG are and I see Lizzie siphoning from the Necromancer. I look over at the others that are under his control, they seem to be stumbling as well. "Landon?" Nothing, he says nothing, he does nothing. I grab his cheeks and rest my forehead against his. "Please don't make me do this. Come back to me." I look him in the eye and lean in to kiss him, but when I do it's not returned. I don't feel the love, the spark that I normally felt when I kiss Landon. I take a step back and conjure the golden arrow. I cut my hand open and let the blood flow onto the arrow. I place my hand on his shoulders and raise the arrow. "I'm so sorry." I apologize. I plunge the arrow through his heart, as I do so tears stream down my face. Landon falls down dead on the ground, he then begins to turn to ash and the wind scatters his ashes. I fall on my knees and continue to cry. Kol and Rebekah rush to my side and comfort me. Shortly after Lizzie comes to my side to comfort me as well.

**A FEW HOURS LATER IN THE SALVATORE SCHOOL**

After Malivore and the Necromancer were defeated all the vampires compelled the citizens of Mystic Falls. They were compelled to believe most of the town was destroyed by a violent wind storm. Afterwards all the students went back to the Salvatore school, we immediately had a memorial for Alyssa (again), that Chad guy, and Raf. Since the Necromancer was defeated, his hold over our friends was cut. Afterwards the super squad gathered in Alaric's office, where we've been sitting in silence. I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned to see Lizzie with a cup of tea in her hand, she offered it to me. I smiled at her in thanks and took the cup.

"I know this is the worst possible time to bring this up, but we're still not in the clear." Alaric speaks up.

"Josie." MG says.

"We still need to purge the black magic out of her."

"We have a few dark objects that may be able to contain her black magic back in New Orleans." Freya offered.

"The Necromancer told me something before I siphoned him out of existence." Lizzie states.

"What'd he say?" I ask her.

"He said there would be nothing strong enough to hold Josie's black magic, that only he would be able to hold on to her magic. I didn't believe him at the time because I thought he was only saying that so he could live, but what if he's right. I mean the sand clock was designed to hold the effects of dark magic, but that degraded after just a few weeks."

"Hey, you made the right decision. Even if what he said is true, it would have been too dangerous to transfer that amount of black magic inside of him. He probably would have been unstoppable." Alaric says to comfort Lizzie.

"So, what do we do?" Kaleb asks. 

"Aunt Freya and Uncle Kol will go back to New Orleans and bring back the most powerful object they can find, as soon as they do they'll come back, we'll go to Josie and Lizzie will do the transference spell." I explain.

"And if the object isn't able to hold the black magic?" Jed asks.

"Then we put Josie under a sleep spell until we find a way to purge her of that magic once and for all."

"Is that really going to be necessary?" Caroline asks.

"You've seen first hand what she is capable of. We all have, Dark Josie can't roam around free anymore, she needs to be contained and purged from Josie for good."

"I agree. I know neither of you may not like it." Freya gestures towards Alaric and Caroline. "But it's the best course of action." Alaric and Caroline look at each other for a moment, then nod their heads in agreement.

"How do we track her down?" Lizzie asks.

"Tracking spell. I have a feeling she's not hiding anymore. She told us about the Necromancer and his plan knowing we'd come back and stop him. She thought afterwards we'd be broken, that I'd be broken. But we're not, are we?" I ask the room, and they shake their heads no. "Then let's get our Josie back." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took me so long to update this fic. I've been really tired lately; also, I'm lazy and a really bad procrastinator. I hope you enjoy this update, and for those of you who are all for Landon dying I'm right there with you. This is basically what I think will happen when Legacies airs again, or at the very least this is what I hope will happen, because honestly I'm not a hug Landon fan.


	9. WHEN THE DARKNESS COMES

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm back, sorry for the long wait. After I updated TVD Paradox my work schedule changed completely, I needed to adjust. Anyway hope you enjoy the new chapter.

** WHEN THE DARKNESS COMES **

After the latest confrontation Jade and I left the hotel and hailed a cab. The cab driver drove us to the airport, and we went to stand in line to get plane tickets. The lady behind the counter was talking to a gentlemen about his private jet when she noticed Jade sipping on her last blood bag. "Why are you drinking blood?" She asks nervously. The gentleman she was speaking to turns towards us and notices Jade sipping on the blood bag as well.

"Because I'm a vampire." Jade answers nonchalantly as she tosses the finished bag.

"Pffft, good one. There's no way that was real blood." The man says.

"It was, wasn't that great though. Fresh blood is always better." Jade's vampire features show, and both individuals look frightened. I raise my hand to stop her from attacking them.

"Just one second." Jade's vampire features disappear. "Do you really have a private jet?" I ask, and the man nods yes. "Where's it suppose to take you?"

"H-Home, I'm from Cali-California. I was just here on business." I turn and notice he's holding on to his wallet with shaky hands. I extend my hand and use telekinesis to get hold of his wallet. I take out his drivers license and see he is indeed from California and lives in Beverly Hills, I show his license to Jade. "What do you think?"

"I think we just found our next stop."

"You can kill him now." Jade uses her vamp speed to approach and feed on the man while I speak with the lady at the counter who is screaming hysterically.

I use my power to calm her into telling me where he's jet is located. She prints off his information and hands it to me. I walk towards the appropriate gate while Jade follows behind me, feeding on whoever she can get her hands on. Once we arrive on the jet I tell the staff to get to work, five minutes later we're in the air sipping champagne. "This is the life." Jade says once she downs her champagne. She gestures the stewardess to refill her glass, the stewardess walks to Jade with the champagne bottle in hand, and is about to refill her glass, but her hands are shaky from fear, Jade notices and looks her in the eye. "Stop shaking and refill my glass." The stewardess does as Jade says, then Jade gestures her to leave.

"So, what's the plan when we land?" Jade asks.

"We find the house, ensure whoever else is there vacates, and from there we do what we did in New York, whatever we want." I respond.

"What about your dad and super squad?"

"What about them?"

"What if Malivore doesn't beat them, what if they win?"

"Well of course their going to win."

"Then why didn't you kill them back at the hotel?"

"Because then the Necromancer would do god knows what with Malivore under his control, and that may interfere with my plans of going off on my own and enjoying myself. Hope is the only one who can defeat Malivore and the Necromancer."

"Ok, but won't they come after us again."

"It's a possibility, but given Hope's fear of losing people, I think we may be in the clear."

"How do you figure?"

"The Necromancer more than likely killed Landon while everyone was here in New York, if that's the case in order to defeat Malivore Hope has to activate her vampire side, once she does that all she has to do..."

"Is kill Malivore, aka her boyfriend."

"Exactly, Hope may be a badass, but she's also fragile. Having to kill the love of her life will break her. She'll either shut herself off again, or shut off her humanity. Either way, no one will come after us without her."

"And what if she doesn't break and comes after us?"

"Then we kill her and anyone else with her." I answer while sipping my champagne. Jade smiles at that, she puts down her champagne and straddles me.

"I like it when you talk murder." Jade unzips my pants and puts two fingers in my center, I let out a moan at the action, and notice the stewardess looking at us.

"W-We have an audience."

"I don't care." Jade kisses me. I drop my champagne glass and grab hold of Jade tangling my hands in her hair.

**CALIFORNIA 3 HOURS LATER**

As soon as we land in California we take a cab straight to Beverly Hills. When we arrive at the house I use my magic to open the door, when I step inside I notice Jade hanging back, I turn and gave her a questionable look. "I need to be invited in." Jade simply says. I rub my eyes and shake my head, then I look back up at Jade. "The owner of this house is probably the guy you feed on in the airport at New York." I say to Jade. She's surprised for only a moment, then steps inside the house, closing the door behind her.

"Honey is that you?" A woman comes out of the kitchen and has a shocked expression on her face when she sees Jade and I. "Who are you and what are you doing in my house.?"

"Daddy!" Two girls shout from upstairs, then two girls no older than 12 and 5 come down the stairs.

"Girls go back to your rooms." The girls stop at their mother's words, then notice it isn't their father at the door.

"I'm gonna look around." I tell Jade. I walk away from Jade as I hear her ask who she's going to eat first. During my walk I find a library and I look around at the books inside. I pick a book from the shelves and briefly scan through it, when I no longer hear screams I go to the foyer where Jade has just finished feeding off the five year old. "The kids too?" I ask.

"Foods food." Jade replies, then she stands and wipes her mouth. "Besides I'm a ripper, according to your father rippers are sadistic vampires who enjoy abusing, dispatching, and/or mutilating their victims."

"Keep this up and you may surpass Stefan Salvatore's fame." 

"The Ripper of Monterey, one can only dream." Jade looks down at the mutilated bodies, then back up at me. "So, about these bodies..."

"Bury them in the back yard, I'm not starting a fire in Beverly Hills."

"Good thinking."

**THREE DAYS LATER**

It had been three days since we had arrived in California. Shortly after taking over the Beverly Hills house I spend most of my time in the library, while Jade was out and about feeding on all of California. I've recently found myself weary of her feeding habits. She's been drawing attention, and I've noticed the police driving by our street on more than one occasion. I may have to do something about it, but that can wait until I finish this book. As I'm reading my book I hear Jade come into the library.

"I'm bored." Jade states.

"Then go out and do something, this is California, there's plenty to do." I respond.

"I've actually been thinking, what if we threw a huge party here?"

"I hate crowds, I made an exception in New York because it was my birthday."

"Why are you so dull all of a sudden?" 

"Just because I have no qualms about hurting those who care about me, or watching you go on a killing spree, doesn't mean I've changed completely."

"Then it's a good thing I already invited people over, otherwise we'd have another boring night in." Jade turns to leave. "I'm gonna go get booze." She says as she walks out of the library.

"Definitely gonna have to kill her." I say when I hear the front door shut.

**LATER THAT NIGHT**

People started entering the house around nine o'clock. By the time ten o'clock rolled around there was a large crowd of people inside the house. I was extremely irritated, and I guess Jade must have noticed it because she approached me with a drink in hand. "Don't be a downer, have a drink." I take the drink and take a sip of it.

"How is it the police haven't shown up. There's a lot of people here, not to mention it's loud." I ask.

"I compelled the whole neighborhood earlier to ignore everything that goes down at this house, including the police officer whose been patrolling our neighborhood lately." Jade answers.

Jade and I turn towards the sound of splashing. Several people have jumped into the pool, Jade drops her drink and joins them. I shake my head and continue to sip on my drink. When I have finished I toss the cup and head inside the house towards the library. When I open the door I see two people making out.

"Get out." I say, they turn to me about to say something, when they notice my eyes have blackened. They quickly get up and leave the library.

Once they exit the library I pick up the book I was reading earlier from the table and continue reading it. I'm nearly finished with the book when I suddenly hear multiple screams. "Seriously?" I book mark the chapter I'm on and step out of the library only to see people running around frantically. I see Jade feeding on the guests one after the other. I look down and see blood and limbs littered all over the floor. I rub my temple already feeling a headache come on. I snap my fingers and everyone freezes in place, including Jade. "What are you doing?" She asks. I reach out with my mind and command everyone to leave the house. I approach Jade until I am standing in front of her.

"I was going to let you have your fun tonight, but then you had to do this." I gesture towards the dead bodies.

"You didn't seem to mind before." Jade comments.

"I didn't mind it before, but now it's...what was the word you used to describe me earlier...oh yes, dull." 

"So, what? You gonna kill me?"

"Like you weren't thinking the same thing."

"Touché'."

"Glad we can end things on good terms." I raise my hand and flick it slightly, forcing Jade's heart out of her chest and into my hand. Jade desiccates and falls to the ground dead. I drop her heart and start cleaning up using magic. Once I clean the house and place the dead bodies in a grave, I look down at Jade one last time. "It was fun while it lasted." I flick my wrist to cover the grave with dirt. I go inside the house and go to bed.

**THE NEXT MORNING**

The next morning I wake up feeling refreshed. I make myself a pot of coffee and pour it into a cup with milk. I walk around the house enjoying the silence. Jade was fun, and the sex was great, but her constant need for blood would have been her downfall, and she would have dragged me down with her. Now that she's out of the picture I can enjoy my freedom from Salvatore in peace.

I walk into the living room and stare at the piano that's just sitting there. Playing piano was one of many things I learned while Lizzie was in therapy. I place my coffee cup down and walk over to the piano. I test it out to make sure it's tuned correctly, then I begin to play it. As I play a song eventually begins to form in my mind.

_Tried to save myself from fallin' in._

_Only bad things came from wanting it._

_So, close to the edge of fragile sin._

_I pulled on that thread, unraveled it._

_Bittersweet that song when the darkness comes,_

_the deceiving call when the darkness comes._

_Slowly wasting lights, drip from my tongue._

_Keepin' me alive, I've ever known._

_Bittersweet the sound when the darkness comes,_

_the deceiving call when the darkness comes._

As I'm putting the finishing touches to the song I feel a supernatural presence enter the house. It's familiar, yet different at the same time. I don't move from my spot, opting to wait for the stranger/not stranger to come to me. I only wait a minute when Hope enters the living room, understanding why the magic felt so familiar and different at the same time. Last time I had spoken to Hope she was only a werewolf and a witch, now she's a full tribrid. "That was beautiful." Hope says." I smile at that and stand from the piano stepping away from it.

"I have to say, I'm surprised you're here." I tell her.

"We have some unfinished business."

"Mmm." I look around for everyone else, but see, nor sense anyone. "Where's everyone?"

"It's just me."

"I doubt it." I take a step forward and walk into a barrier. "How is this possible. I would have sensed the use of magic."

"Unless the person using magic was cloaked by a very powerful Gemini cloaking spell." I suddenly feel my magic being forced out of my body. "It's time to bring back the real Josie."

With the magic I still have inside of me I attempt to reach out and look for my sister, she's the only one who has the power to siphon the magic out of me, but I can't sense her anywhere. My magic is draining at a rapid pace, I fall to my knees, I look up and see the black magic heading in a certain direction. With what magic I have left I break the leg of the chair I was sitting on and fling it forward until it hits something. "No!" Hope exclaims, suddenly my sister is uncloaked, she drops a magical object and it shatters to pieces, returning all my magic back to me. Hope rushes to Lizzie as she falls to the ground. I stand up and siphon the barrier spell.

"I have to admit, you almost had me there." Hope bites into her wrist, she's about to offer her blood to Lizzie, when I push her away from her with my magic. "Let's not do that." I walk up to Lizzie and kneel beside her. "I'm really going to enjoy this." I say as I dig the chair leg deeper into Lizzie, she cries out in pain, I can't help but smile at this. Suddenly I'm pushed up against the wall, with Hope's hand around my neck. "Kinky." I laugh.

"Hey, is it done?" Alaric asks as he enters the living room, he sees Lizzie on the floor bleeding and rushes to her, applying pressure to the wound. "What happened?"

"Dark Josie here managed to get one up on us, but that ends now." Hope applies a little pressure to my neck. "Bring back our Josie, now." She says sternly.

"I am Josie."

"No, you're not."

"Yes. I. Am." I manage to push Hope back with my magic. She gets angry and both her vampire and werewolf features appear on her face. "Look at you, a full tribrid now. My condolences for Landon, though if you don't mind me saying you could have done better."

"Shut up."

"Just hear me out. While admittedly you two did have some cute moments, I mean the guy did write you a song, you two just didn't go together. He was weak, and mostly useless."

"Shut up."

"I mean the guy finds out he's a freaking phoenix, and yet all he's good for is getting himself killed and then rising from the ashes. It took him almost year before he decided to try to figure out what else he was capable of doing. Do you know how much trouble he could have saved us if he started learning how to fly sooner? You could do so much better Hope."

"I said shut up!" Hope pushes me back with magic. Hope and I continue to throw spell after spell at one another. "We're not leaving here without our Josie." I laugh at that as Hope cast's a spell towards me, I siphon it and throw it back at her, knocking her on the ground.

"You wanna play that game, fine I'll play along. Good, sweet Josie is never coming back. She has no reason to."

"She has us." Hope says, and I laugh at that.

"Putting everything that happened during her birthday week aside, just look at all of you. Dad's always busy looking after you making sure you don't turn out like your father, because if you do, there's literally no one on earth who could stop you. He focuses so much on you, he doesn't bother with Lizzie and I until we are in trouble, or dying. Lizzie, for all her talk about changing and becoming a better person, she never actually sticks to it. Eventually she goes back to being bitchy and selfish. And you, you are on the verge of shutting yourself off again. Your greatest fear is losing another person you love, it's why you shut yourself off for so long, and yet in order to save the world you had to kill someone you love. The only reason you haven't shut yourself off yet is because you still feel the need to save me, but the moment you do that, you'll be back in your room, only coming out to eat and attend classes. So, tell me Hope, why would Josie ever want to come back to that?" Hope doesn't answer, there's nothing but dead silence. "That's what I thought." I see the anger rise in Hope. "What's the matter, was I a little too honest with you?" Suddenly Hope punches me square in the face. "I'll take that as a yes." Hope is about to punch me again, but I use my magic to stop her half way. I then use my magic to toss her around like a rag doll. "Tell me, if I tear your head off, will that be enough to kill you?"

"You're never gonna find out."

"Is that so?"

"Yeah." Hope stands from the floor. "Because I'm done being nice." Hope vamp speeds over to me and throws me towards the piano. She vamp speeds to me again and tosses me against the wall. Before I am able to stand Hope makes her way over to me and smacks my head hard against the floor, my vision becomes blurred, she smacks my head against the floor again and everything goes dark.

"Was that really necessary?" Alaric asks me.

"I wasn't sure I'd beat Dark Josie with magic, so I improvised." I respond.

"Alright, heal Lizzie, I'll grab Dark Josie, we'll take her back to the school and figure out what to do from there."

"I think we both know what needs to be done Alaric."

"The sleeping spell." Lizzie says weakly. I nod my yes, then look back at Dark Josie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song Josie is singing is called When the Darkness comes, by Grace Fulmer. The song is how I got the idea for this fic's title.
> 
> Also, what did you think of the exchange between Hope and Josie? Let me know in the comments below.


	10. I'M SORRY, I'M SO SORRY

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Josie's finally home, but Hope still has no idea how to bring her back.

** I'M SORRY I'M SO SORRY **

"If we're gonna put her under the sleeping spell we need to do it now, because the moment she wakes up we're screwed." Lizzie says.

"You're right, but first..." I turn to Lizzie and walk over to her. I bring my wrist to my mouth and bite into it. I offer my wrist to Lizzie, she takes it and starts drinking my blood. As she's doing that I notice Alaric looking around the house. "What is it?"

"Where's Jade?" Alaric asks. I tilt my head and use my enhanced hearing to see if I can pick up any additional heartbeats, but the only heartbeats I hear are the ones present in the room with me. Lizzie let's go of my wrist and sits up.

"Maybe she left to feed." Lizzie suggest.

"Hope, look into her mind, find out where Jade went off to." Alaric says. I walk over to Dark Josie and look into her mind to see what happened. I see Jade tear into the family and bury them outside while she just stands there doing nothing, then I see another killing spree the night before, and then I see Dark Josie killing Jade and burying her with the others. I look up at Alaric with a slightly horrified expression. "What?"

"The family, Jade, their dead and buried in the back yard, along with some others." I say solemnly. Alaric rushes to the backyard, followed shortly by Lizzie. I sit there with a still passed out Dark Josie. I hear Alaric and Lizzie digging through the dirt, I hear Lizzie gasp as they find the dead bodies. I bring my knees to my chest and place my head on them. I wait for Alaric and Lizzie to come back, when they do Alaric is carrying Jade's desiccated body, and Lizzie looked like she was trying not to let what she saw get to her.

"Let's hurry and put that bitch under the sleep spell." I nod my head and stand beside Lizzie. I grab hold of her hand and she siphons from me. I start chanting, when I've said the verses of the spell Lizzie repeats after me. After chanting the spell a few more times I feel it take effect, once it does Lizzie and I stop chanting. I go over to Dark Josie and pick her up. We place Jade and Josie in the back of the SUV and get inside. Once Alaric starts the car up he pulls out of the driveway and heads back to the school. Neither one of us wanting to mention what was found in the backyard.

**6 MONTHS LATER**

Six months had passed since we finally caught Dark Josie and put her under the sleeping spell. We put her in a coffin inside one of the more secure transition cells. Lizzie was against putting her down there, but Alaric and I convinced her that it was the safest place for both her and the students. Shortly after classes resumed, along with construction of the area she set fire to. A few of us also helped clean up the town, and fix up some of the stores that had been damaged. After a while things went back to normal, well as normal as it can get. Caroline went back overseas to continue looking for a way to stop the Merge, Alaric locked himself in his office, only making appearances to eat and make announcements. Lizzie went back to being her usual self, though if you paid close attention you could see she was hurting, and missing her sister constantly. And me, I spent most of my time trying to get the black magic out of Josie. I pulled every grimoire the school had available, and had my family send me Esther's grimoires to see if I could find something that could help, but came up empty.

After another long night of researching I finally went to bed. I had just gotten comfortable when I heard my door knob twist. I look over to my door to see that it's Lizzie. One thing that had changed with Lizzie is that she would come over to my room to stay the night, when sleeping alone in her room proved to be too much for her. As Lizzie is closing my door I move over and make room on my bed for Lizzie. She slides under the covers and lays down on her back facing the ceiling same as me. We never say anything to each other, just lay down in silence until we both fall asleep. Then in the morning Lizzie gets up and goes back to her room as if everything is ok. Tonight though, shortly after Lizzie lays down on my bed she speaks up. "She was right." I look over at her confused.

"Who was right, about what?" I ask.

"Dark Josie, she was right about us." Lizzie replies.

"What are you talking about Lizzie?"

"Back in California, when you were facing off with her, do you remember all those things she said about us."

"I try very hard not to think about it."

"She said I'd go back to my selfish self, and while dad may not be focusing on you, he sure as hell isn't focused on me, mom went back overseas, and you, you shut yourself off again."

"If I did would you be here with me now?"

"The only time I ever see you is in the cafeteria, class, or when I come in here not to be alone. Only I'm still alone because you and I don't speak to one another, we just lie down here staring up into the ceiling until we both fall asleep." I open my mouth to speak up, but no words come out. "I hate to admit it, but Dark Josie was right. Why would our Josie ever want to come back to this?" I want to answer her, but I have no answer to give, so instead I turn over and face the wall. It gets quiet between us, and eventually Lizzie's breathing evens out and she falls asleep, shortly after I fall asleep as well.

The next morning as usual Lizzie was already gone. I grabbed the grimoire I had placed under my bed and opened up to where I had left off the night before, but Lizzie's words last night echoed through my mind. Lizzie was right, Alaric still didn't pay attention to his daughter, I don't even think he's visited Josie, Caroline went back overseas, who knows when we'll see her again, while Lizzie will visit Josie on occasion, I'm the only one of us whose actually put in the work to find a way to save her, and me, unable to save either Josie or Landon, I locked myself back in my room. Essentially shutting myself off from the rest of the school. I let out a heavy sigh and close the grimoire and look over at my nightstand. I had placed the prism in my drawer so that it would be easy to avoid it, but it's been six months and I still haven't found anything. Surely there's a solution I hadn't thought of, or something I missed, if so my subconscious will help me dig it out. I reach over my nightstand and open it up. I dig around a little bit until I find the prism, I stare at it debating wither or not I actually want to do this. Like me my subconscious has a bit of an attitude, plus I'm worried about the form my subconscious will take. Will it take the form of my dad? My mom? Josie? I close my eyes and activate the prism. I leave my eyes closed for a minute before opening them, when I do I see Josie in front of me. I can't help but smile. I know it isn't actually her, but I never realized just how much I missed her until this moment.

"You have no idea how good it is to see you." I say.

"I'm your subconscious, I have a general idea." My subconscious says, I chuckle at her statement. "So, out of all the things swimming around in your head, which do you want to talk about first?"

"How do I get the black magic out of Josie?"

"You don't."

"Excuse me?"

"She's had that black magic inside of her for too long, even if there was some magical object out there that could hold all that magic in, it would eventually break down."

"So, what then? We can't just leave her under the sleeping spell forever."

"The answers are right in front of you, it's been in front of you. Just think back to everything that happened since the twins' birthday, to every interaction you had with Josie."

"She said a lot of mean things."

"A lot of true things." I don't have a response to that. "Come on, just...take a trip down memory lane, the answer you're looking for is there." I let out a sigh and close my eyes, I think back to the twins' birthday party.

" _Anytime any of you have needed me I've always been there for you, when you've needed help I've helped, no questions asked, but the moment I need something I'm left to my own devices. Well, guess what, I'm done. I'm done being nice, I'm done being selfless, but most of all I'm done with all of you_." 

" _She's basically the witch equivalent of a vampire without their humanity. She said she wanted to stop caring about people who barely gave her a second thought, so she shut that part of herself off_."

" _I know, and I loved you too. But right now as I look at you, I don't feel loved, all I feel is pain. Pain for all the times I needed you to be there, pain for all the times I needed to talk to you, but you were too busy with your research. I'm done feeling this pain. I don't want to feel it anymore_."

" _Good, sweet Josie is never coming back. She has no reason to. Dad's always busy looking after you making sure you don't turn out like your father, because if you do, there's literally no one on earth who could stop you. He focuses so much on you, he doesn't bother with Lizzie and I until we are in trouble, or dying. Lizzie, for all her talk about changing and becoming a better person, she never actually sticks to it. Eventually she goes back to being bitchy and selfish. And you, you are on the verge of shutting yourself off again. Your greatest fear is losing another person you love, it's why you shut yourself off for so long, and yet in order to save the world you had to kill someone you love. The only reason you haven't shut yourself off yet is because you still feel the need to save me, but the moment you do that, you'll be back in your room, only coming out to eat and attend classes. So, tell me Hope, why would Josie ever want to come back to that?_ "

"All Josie's ever needed was for someone to see her, hear her, be there for her when she needed. We didn't do that for her before, so she gave up the fight, gave up on the people she cared about the most, and shut down that part of herself. It's like Jade said, she's the witch equivalent of a vampire without humanity." 

"So, how do you get her to flip the switch?" I stand up and pace my room, trying to think of an idea.

"So, long as Dark Josie is in control there's no getting to her...but Josie, she's still in there, it's just a matter of getting to her."

"And how do you do that?" I stop my pacing.

"I'm a vampire now, I can use telepathy to get inside Josie's head. Once I'm there I just need to find her and talk to her."

"You need to do more than just talk to her Hope." I break away from my thoughts and look at my subconscious with confusion. "Remember she chose to stop fighting, she chose to let the darkness in. If you want to bring back Josie you need to do more than just have a conversation with her."

"What do you suggest?"

"Seriously? Do I have to do all the thinking for you?" I give my subconscious a pointed glare. "Mikaelson's aren't just known for their violent tendencies, their also known for their grand gestures." I start laughing at that.

"Oh, my god, not you too."

"You have to admit, Lizzie made some fair points."

"See, this is why I was hesitant to use the crystal, cause I knew this would happen. While I do love Josie, I only see her as a friend, nothing more. I love...loved Landon, he was my epic love."

"Look, I'm not saying that you never loved Landon, or even that your feeling for him weren't real. I know you loved him, and that a part of you always will."

"I appreciate you saying that, even though I sense a but coming."

"Do you remember when the Croatoan came to the school, how at first it targeted you and Lizzie because you two were keeping the fact that you were back a secret?" I nod my head yes. "You thought trading secrets with Lizzie would help stop it or at least slow it down."

"I see where you're going with this. Just because I had a crush on Josie for a week when I was fourteen doesn't mean I love her now."

"Did you though?" I give my subconscious a confused look. "Did you only have a crush on her for a week? Or...Did you bury your feelings for her so deep, that even now you can't see how much you love her."

"You're sounding a lot like Lizzie right now."

"I'm your subconscious, I know your every emotion, every memory. Including the ones you've buried."

"Ok, let's say for arguments sake you were right. Why would I bury my feeling for Josie for all these years?"

"The same reason you distanced yourself from her the most, despite the fact her and her sister tried to be your friend. You had to hide who you truly were, lie even. And you didn't want to have to lie to her, but you also didn't want to have to tell her the truth, because what if she didn't accept you? What if she hated you almost as much as her father hated yours? So, you took the easy way out. You buried your feelings and kept your distance from her." I start contemplating her words. "But that all changed last year, didn't it." I don't answer at first, until a flash of the mandatory community service we had to do surfaces in my mind. "During your community service you opened up to her, not a lot, but just enough to allow your feeling for her to resurface."

"Just because I opened up a bit doesn't mean..."

"You gifted Josie a talisman that makes quiet things heard, because you saw that she needed to be heard. When Lizzie was the only one who remembered you after Malivore you were more concerned with breaking her heart than you were about yours. After Josie brought back everyone's memories of you, you told her you would leave the school if you staying only caused her more pain. Because despite the fact that this place is as much your home as it hers, you couldn't bare causing her any more pain than you already had. Finally, when you had to choose between saving Landon or the Saltzman's, and you chose them over him. Was it really because it was six lives versus one?" I don't say anything, I honestly don't even know what to say anymore. "You clearly have a lot to think about and I think you'd rather do it on you're own without hearing my input. Just do yourself a favor Hope, don't go inside Josie's head with a half baked plan, she'll only sink in further into the darkness if you do." I nod my head in acknowledgment and deactivate the crystal.

I go over the conversation I just had in my head over and over again. Did I really have buried feeling for Josie? I mean don't get me wrong anyone would be lucky to have her as a girlfriend, including me. But if I had buried my feelings for her, wouldn't I remember doing that? This was just so confusing, talking with my subconscious did not help to clear things up. I shake my head as an attempt to clear my thoughts. I can process that conversation later, right now I need to focus on the conversation I need to have with Josie. My subconscious was right about one thing, I can't go in with a half baked plan. I think on this for what seems like hours until I get an idea. I get off my bed and rush to Alaric's office. When I arrive I push open the doors, startling him which cause him to spill his drink.

"I think I might be able to bring Josie back, but we're going to need Caroline."

"But she's back overseas."

"If we don't bring back Josie there won't be a Merge to stop, so stop drinking and get her on the phone, now."

**THE NEXT DAY**

The following day Lizzie and I are waiting in Alaric's office. He had left an hour ago to pick up Caroline from the airport. I was going over what I was going to say to everyone, to Josie in my head. There was no room for error, if this went wrong, it would either take us longer to get her back, or we could lose her forever. As I'm contemplating everything in my head I suddenly feel eyes on me. I looked up to see an anxious Lizzie, her arms were crossed over her chest, right leg was bouncing up and down without her seeming to realize, and she was staring directly at me. "Is there something on my face?" I question, and she scoffs at me.

"My dad comes into my room and tells me to wait in his office until he gets back from the airport, says he's picking up mom. When I ask him what's going on, he says he doesn't know, that all he does know is that you have a plan to rescue Josie, and that it requires mom to be present."

"Your mom just needs to be here, the actual plan requires all of us."

"So what is it, what's the plan?"

"I'd rather not repeat myself twice, so as soon as your parents get here I'll go over the plan." Lizzie rolls her eyes at me and her leg seems to be bouncing faster than it was just a few seconds ago. Lizzie and I sit and wait for another five minutes before Alaric and Caroline enter the office.

"Ok, what's this plan to save my daughter?" Caroline asks right away.

"Before I get into that, there's some things we need to discuss, so if everyone will get comfortable..." I wait for Alaric and Caroline to sit down, Lizzie's right leg stops bouncing and her left leg starts to bounce. "We all heard some cruel, harsh things from Dark Josie, but I think it's safe to say they are all true." Caroline shifts in her seat uncomfortably. "If we want Josie to come back to us, and stay with us some things need to change." I look over to Alaric. "I didn't need Dark Josie to tell me your fear of me becoming like my father. I think everyone in this room, in this school knows that. It's why you started to train with me, why you make sessions with Emma mandatory. And I'm sure me activating my vampire side has only doubled your worry, but I need you to stop, or at the very least worry less about me. Your daughters need you, and you focusing your attention on me only makes them feel unloved and unwanted."

"You're right." Alaric says attempting to fight the tears threating to pour from he's eyes. "You're right."

"And maybe stop drinking."

"Yeah, that's probably a good idea." I turn to look at Caroline.

"Everyone in this room knows why you're always overseas, trying to find a solution for the Merge can't be easy. And while it's important, so is being there for your daughters. Eventually you're either going to find a solution, or you're not, and when that time comes, you don't want to have a strained relationship with your daughters." Caroline begins to tear up as well, but unlike Alaric she doesn't fight it. "Take a break every once in a while, swap out with Alaric if you have to. This school could use a change in headmasters for a little bit." Alaric is about to say something, but I beat him to it. "You thought it was a good idea to send three delinquent kids in the same prison world as Kai. A sociopath who killed your wife on your wedding day, tried to kill the twins, and who talks way too much."

"Yeah, not one of my best ideas. I suppose switching out headmasters every so often wouldn't be a terrible plan." 

"Guess that leaves me." Lizzie says.

"You already know what you have to do to fix your relationship with your sister, you just need to stick with it."

"But..."

"Don't worry about saying the wrong thing, just be there for your sister. That's all she's ever needed from you."

"What about my selfishness? How do I fix that and stick with it?"

"Start by doing the things Josie wants to do and work from there."

"But Josie likes to do boring stuff." Lizzie complains.

"Lizzie if you don't think you can do this for your sister, then there's no point in trying to get her back." Lizzie gets quiet. She stays that way for a minute.

"No, she needs to come back. I need her back." Lizzie states with tears in her eyes. "I'll do my best, but I'm gonna need your help keeping me in line."

"That won't be a problem."

"Well." Caroline starts, wiping the tears from her face. "Now that we have that settled, what's the actual plan to get my daughter back."

"I'm going to get inside Josie's head and convince her to come back." I respond.

"That's it, that's your plan!" Lizzie shouts.

"Our Josie is still in there somewhere, I can bring her back. I just needed to have this conversation with everyone before hand. I need to convince her that what happened before won't happen again, and I couldn't do that unless I knew you guys were willing to make a few changes first.

"If that's the plan maybe I should go instead." Caroline suggests.

"If Josie's in there, then there's a good chance Dark Josie is as well, if you run into her she will kill you. And out of everyone here I'm the hardest to kill."

"I hate to admit it, but she's right." Alaric agrees.

"Ok, let's get Josie back." Caroline states.

**TRANSITION CELLS**

We're in the transition cell that's holding Josie. Alaric opens up the coffin holding Dark Josie while Caroline brings me a chair to sit in. I make an adjustment to the spell, it's to be lifted the moment Josie is back in control. Once I do that Caroline sits me down and places her hands on my shoulders. "You got this." I nod my head in acknowledgement. I look over at Dark Josie and take a few deep breaths, then look back to Caroline. "So, the first thing you want to do is place your hand on hers. Second, clear your head. This isn't going to work if your mind is elsewhere, so just focus on Josie. Once inside her mind, it might feel like you're in some sort of alternate reality, and in a way you will be. So, don't let yourself be distracted, just find Josie and bring her back with you. Got it?" I nod my head yes and do what Caroline instructed. At first I see nothing but darkness, then I feel a sudden pull, and in a blink of an eye I find myself in a very large library. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the inside of Josie's mind is a library. I walk up and down the aisles of books for what feels like hours when I finally come across Josie in the center of the library, sitting by a table, reading a book. I take two steps forward when I hear Josie speak.

"You shouldn't be here." I see Josie close the book, stand up from the chair she's sitting in, and turn to face me. 

"I know." I respond.

"Then leave."

"I can't, not without you. Please, come back with me." I reach my hand out to her.

"Why? Why would I want to go back to being weak Josie, the twin hardly anyone notices, the one whose too afraid to speak her mind in fear of hurting someone's feelings, who let's her sister take advantage of her so she doesn't have an episode, the one whose always everyone's second choice."

"Josie, I know you think you're weak, but you're strong. No one could shoulder the burdens that you carry. And despite carrying so much, you're always there for your friends when they need you. So, please, Jo, we really need you right now. While you've been in here, _**she's**_ been rampaging in the real world. _**She**_ shut off Jade's humanity, they ran away and _**she**_ just stood by and watched as Jade feed on anyone and everyone, including children. **_She_** even killed a few people herself. _**She**_ said some really mean things, and didn't tell us about the Necromancer's plans until it was too late. **_She_** hurt Lizzie and your mom, and she killed Jade Jo." Josie looks at me horrified, she sits down on the table.

"Oh my god...I"

"In my defense..." I turn at the sound of Dark Josie. "I was buried deep in your subconscious for so long, when I got out I got a bit...carried away."

"Carried away! None of that was supposed to happen!" Josie exclaims. Dark Josie attempts to approach her, but I grab her and turn her towards me.

"Stay the hell away from her." I state firmly. She uses telekinesis and throws me towards a bookshelf.

Hope!" I stand up and attempt to use a spell against her, but nothing happens.

"You're in my head Hope, I have the power here. If you don't leave now I will kill you, and if you die in here you die in the real world."

"Not without Josie." She uses telekinesis against me over and over again. I try to stand again, but my body has weakened so I fall back down.

"Just go Hope." I lift my head up and look at Josie. "With her here I remember everything. This sleep spell is a kindness, I deserve much worse. I'm really sorry Hope. Please tell my family how sorry I am."

"Jo..."

"Go, go and live your life Hope. Find love again. I know you think you already found your epic love with Landon, but he was only your first love, I have a feeling your epic love is still out there somewhere just waiting for you to find them." I don't know what it was about that statement, but when she said that, I was hit with a realization that I did in fact love Josette Saltzman. I gather what strength I have left and stand on my feet.

"No, I'm not going anywhere. I don't care if she tosses me like a rag doll. I love you and I'm not leaving here without you."

"What?" Dark Josie and Josie question at the same time.

"I love you. And I know I let you down, I know we let you down, but I promise you that isn't going to happen again."

"Can Lizzie promise the same thing?" Dark Josie asks.

"I talked things out with her and your parents. We're gonna do things differently this time Josie. And if any of them stray, I'll be right there to get them back in line."

"Ok, that's enough talk." Dark Josie raises her hand and closes it into a fist, it's the aneurism spell. I can hear Josie shouting for her to stop, but she keeps going. I can feel blood pouring from my ears and nose.

"I SAID STOP!" Dark Josie stops the spell, Josie rushes over to me and helps me on my feet. She places her hands on my cheeks and inspects my injuries.

"Please Josie, let's go home." Josie says nothing, just looks at me, contemplating what to do. She looks down on the floor for a moment, when she looks back up at me she pushes me and I feel myself leaving her mind.

"Let me guess, you want to bury me back into that hole of darkness and cover it up like I never existed." My darker self says.

"No, but it's obvious you can't be trusted to be in control."

"So, what now?"

"We compromise." My darker version raises an eyebrow at that.

**BACK IN THE REAL WORLD**

"What's taking so long?" Lizzie asks.

"Lizzie, it takes as long as it takes." Caroline states.

"Besides, it's only been five minutes, it hasn't been that long." Alaric adds. Suddenly Hope's body is swaying side to side violently.

"She must have run into Dark Josie." Lizzie comments. Hope's movements stop and she's still again. Alaric, Caroline, and Lizzie watch her closely. Then she starts bleeding from her ears and nose. "This can't be good."

"She's killing her." Alaric realizes. A minute later Hope opens her eyes and stands from the chair.

"Hey, you're ok, you're ok." Caroline says in a comforting tone.

"Josie." Hope rushes to Josie's side, but she's yet to wake up. "No."

"It's ok Hope, you tried." Alaric says as he places he's hand on her shoulder.

"No." Hope hangs her head down. They all stand around Josie, saddened that she hadn't woken, when suddenly Josie sits up and gasps for air. She's breathing in and out heavily.

"Josie, sweetie you need to slow down your breathing." Caroline instructs. Josie does as she's told. When she's calmed she sees her family and Hope around her, tears begin to fall from her eyes.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." Josie begins to sob, Hope is the first to comfort her followed by Lizzie, Caroline, and Alaric. They stay that way for a while, not letting go of Josie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, after a few attempts I got the conversation between Hope and her subconscious right. Thank you for your patience and I hope you enjoy the chapter. Let me know what you think in the comments below.


	11. WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO SAY?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is going to be a bit angsty. Josie's back, but now she has to find a way to deal with everything she did while she was Dark Josie

** WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO SAY? **

****It had been two weeks since Hope brought me back, but I couldn't bring myself to leave the transition cell. I nearly destroyed the school, I turned off Jade's humanity after just turning it on, when I became aware of the Necromancer's plan for Landon I did nothing to stop him, to warn anyone, I hurt my family and friends both emotionally and physically, I stood by as Jade killed innocent people, hell I even joined in on occasion. I don't deserve to leave this transition cell, I don't deserve to live, and I sure as hell don't deserve the love of my family and friends, who despite everything, never gave up on me and fought to bring me back.

My thoughts are interrupted when I hear the door to the transition cells open. I look up and see Lizzie approaching my cell with a tray of food and a small smile on her face. She waves her hand over the cell and it opens, she enters and places the tray of food down in front of me. As soon as she sits down I sense another presence, I look up and see Hope standing by the open cell with a look of concern on her face. I look down at the food my sister placed in front of me. My sister had grabbed a salad for me, fruit, yogurt, and a bottle of water. I take the bottle of water and take several sips of it before setting it down. I grab the yogurt and start eating that, I notice Lizzie turn to Hope, they seem to have a silent conversation of sorts. Hope seems to be insistent on something, while my sister seems to be unsure of herself. This goes on for a minute before my sister turns to me.

"So, um...dad's gonna be leaving soon. He's taking over for mom in looking for a solution for the Merge while mom's gonna stay here and be Headmaster for a while." Lizzie starts, but I say nothing, I just continue eating my yogurt. "It's honestly about time mom comes home, she's been away far too long. I mean don't get me wrong, I love the occasional trip to Europe, but it's so much better actually having her here with us, don't you think so Josie?" I look up at Lizzie, she has this hopeful expression on her face. I wish I could tell her yes, how great it's going to be to have mom around. But like always, I can't seem to form the words. Every time I think about having a conversation I remember trying to kill my own sister, and I just shut down. I don't deserve my sister's kindness. "Josie, please talk to me, you haven't said a word since we brought you back two weeks ago." I continue to say nothing. Lizzie let's out a heavy sigh and stands to leave, but when she reaches the cell's exit, she turns around and stomps towards me. She takes the yogurt I was eating and tosses it to the wall. 

"Lizzie..." Hope speaks.

"For the past two weeks you've just sat here in the dark silent. And I let you because I didn't know what else to do, so I did what I thought you would do. But I'm not you Josie, I'm not a patient person. I can't just sit around and wait for you to open up. I need you to talk to me, and I need you to talk to me right now." I look down at the ground, I hear Lizzie scream as she tosses the entire tray to the wall. "You were upset with us for never being there when you needed us, now we're trying to be and you're giving us the silent treatment. You don't get to do that Josie, you either talk to me right now or, or... I'll have an episode, right here right now." I close my eyes and take a deep breath in, when I open them I look up to see my sister ready to let out another scream.

"What do you want me to say Lizzie?" Both Hope and Lizzie share surprised glances.

"I don't care, anything just so long as you say something." Lizzie begs.

"Tell us what you're thinking." Hope suggests.

"What I'm thinking?" I ask and she nods her head yes. "I'm ashamed of what I did. I feel like I shouldn't be here after all I've done, after all the things I allowed to happen, and for what? Because I was angry? Hurt?"

"You had every right to feel that way Josie. While Dark Josie was a total bitch about it, she was right about us." Lizzie says.

"That's the thing Lizzie, there was no Dark Josie it was all me." 

"I don't understand."

"You know the saying, everyone has a dark side?" I ask, and Lizzie nods.

"Well, I buried mine. Every time I felt it crawling towards the surface I'd push it down, and when I broke the sand clock and absorbed all that magic, all that darkness I buried was released. The Dark Magic didn't turn me into someone different, all it did was bring out what was already there."

"Why'd you bury it?" Hope asks.

"Our mom used to read us fairy tales for bedtime stories. They were so calming. There was good guys and bad guys. Very clear rules that you had to follow. It all made sense. I was either the strong powerful witch who always hurt people, or the weak powerless princess who always needed saving. Until recently I told myself I didn't want to be strong or powerful because it meant hurting Lizzie, or being like Kai. I told myself that being powerful meant being evil. And I was right, I have all this power flowing inside me, and instead of using it against the Necromancer I used it to hurt all of you, I used it to kill people, to get what I wanted what I thought I deserved."  
  
"Josie, being powerful doesn't make you evil. Look at Hope, she's powerful and her father is literally 'The Great Evil', but she's not that bad."  
  
"Uh, thanks." Hope says.  
  
"You're welcome." Lizzie says to Hope, then she focuses back on me. "I don't want you to feel like you have to hold back out of fear of hurting me, or being the bad guy. Josie, you're the best person I know. You're kind and selfless and a bunch of other boring things." I can't help but laugh at that. "I'm sorry I took advantage of that, and I'm sorry that I've been a terrible sister. I'm gonna be better this time around, and Hope's gonna help me."

"I know."

"So... can we please get you out of this cell, it's depressing, and you're looking a little pale." I think about it for a moment.

"I suppose since dad is leaving soon, I should talk to him." Lizzie smiles at this and gives me a hug. While I'm hugging Lizzie I look over at Hope, she has a big smile on her face. I give her a small smile back. Of all the things replaying in my head, her love confession replays the most. I never thought Hope Mikaelson would ever have feelings for me.

**HEADMASTER'S OFFICE**

After we hugged everything out, Hope and Lizzie walked me to our parents office. On the way there every student we passed in the hallway stopped and stared at me. Most of them looked scared, some were confused, other's didn't seem to trust me. I can't blame them, I did destroy part of the school, and kill Alyssa. And while she may not have been the most liked student, she was still one of us. I feel a hand on my shoulder, I turn to see that it's Hope. "You ok?" She asks. I nod my head yes. "Don't mind them. With a little bit of time they'll warm up to you again." Hope assures.

"Everything ok?" Lizzie asks.

"Yeah, just...readjusting." I answer. Lizzie walks over to me and links her arm with mine.

"You have us, that's all that matters." I give her a small smile. Hope links her arm with mine as well and we walk together to the Headmaster's office. When we arrive Hope knocks, we wait until I hear my mom tell us to enter. When we get inside my mom is sitting on the desk, with my father over her shoulder. I guess he's catching her up on everything that's been going on. They look up from the desk, when they see me they drop what their doing and rush over to me and hug me.

"I didn't think you'd ever come out of that cell." My mom says.

"I'm so sorry sweetie, about everything." My dad says.

"Not as sorry as I am." My parents loosen their hold on me and focus on me. "I said some hurtful things to both of you, especially you mom." I look up at her. "While I do wish you were around more, and it hurts when you aren't, I've never thought of you as a surrogate mother, you've always been mom to me." I turn to my dad. "And dad, while I don't think it's a healthy habit, I get why you drink. After remembering everything I've done I could use a few." My dad laughs at that. "I also understand why you put your focus on Hope when her parents died. It wasn't just because you were afraid that she would go down a dark path, you were also just genuinely worried about her, and you did what you thought was best. Lizzie and I just wanted you to turn your attention to us every so often." My dad smiles knowingly and kneels in front of me.

"I know, and I'm sorry I didn't make any time for either of you, I should have. If I did maybe we could have avoided all this. I'm sorry." Dad apologizes.

"And deep down I know you didn't mean to say that. I'm sorry I've been so busy. You're dad and I have been talking, and we've decided that for half a year one of us will be here while the other is off during research, but birthdays and holidays we'll both be here, no matter what. Does that sound good to you?" I turn to Lizzie, she nods her head yes. I turn back to my mom.

"Sounds good to both of us." My mom smiles and wraps me in a hug, we're joined by my dad and Lizzie.

**THE NEXT DAY**

I wake up the next day and I feel someone pressed against me. I turn over and see it's my sister cuddled next to me. We spent most of yesterday talking with our parents. It felt good to have both my parents in the same room, it had been a while. We stayed with them until dinner, the three of us walked to the cafeteria, but the moment we got there everyone stopped what they were doing and just started at me. When I looked over to my right I noticed Jed glaring at me, I guess the rumor about him and Alyssa were true. I told Hope and Lizzie I wasn't hungry and they walked me back to our room. Hope stayed until I fell asleep, and I guess Lizzie fell asleep shortly after. Today was a school day, and I wasn't sure it was a good idea for me to attend classes today. I rolled over to lay down on my back, this had caused my sister to stir and wake. 

"What time is it?" Lizzie asks.

"Not sure, but the alarm hasn't gone off." I respond.

"Then why are you awake?"

"I'm nervous to go back to class." Lizzie seems wide awake now, she sits up and looks down at me, waiting for me to continue. "Everyone hates me Lizzie, especially Jed."

"Not everyone hates you, just Jed." I put my hands on my face and let out a groan. "That was terrible, I'm sorry."

"No, it's fine." I put my hands down. "Really... I knew I wouldn't be welcomed back with open arms, it's part of the reason I wanted to stay down there. It's just seeing them stare at me like that, I'm not sure I'm going to be able to handle it. Maybe I should transfer over to Belgium and start over."

"Nah-uh, no way, because if you go I'll have to go with you, and I really don't want to run into Satan again. Not to mention, Hope will be a lost puppy without us here."

"Speaking of Hope..." I get interrupted by the sound of the alarm clock. Lizzie's about to reach over to shut if off, but I beat her to it with a snap of my fingers. Lizzie whips her head in my direction. "Sorry."

"No, it's ok. I've been meaning to bring this up, but it hasn't felt like the right time..."

"I know you still feel the Black Magic inside of me."

"I thought when you came back, that it would somehow vanish, but it hasn't."

"And it's not going to. It's a part of me now, the only way to get rid of it is if I get rid of it willingly."

"And you don't want to?"

"I almost got rid of it last night, along with my siphoning. I was planning to put it all inside a coin and toss it into the piggy bank mom got me."

"What changed your mind?"

"My conversation with my other half."

"Ugh, she's still around too." 

"I told you, her and I are the same person." Lizzie simply rolls her eyes at me. "Anyway, shortly after I pushed Hope out of my mind we talked. I knew I had to take back control, but I also knew she wouldn't have given it up without a fight. So, I compromised with her. I wouldn't bury her again, I'd accept and embrace my dark side, so long as I could be the one in control."

"Look, I support you no matter what, but are you sure this is a good idea. It's a lot of Black Magic Josie."

"If I go through with getting rid of it, I'll just be doing what I always do, burying my darkness. Each of us has it within us, it's up to us to manage it, and as you can see I've done a rather poor job of that."

"Ok, then I will support you and help you manage it."

"Thanks sis." I sit up to hug Lizzie, as we do we hear a knock on our door.

"You guys up. It's me Hope." Hope says outside our door.

"Didn't you want to talk about Hope before we got interrupted by our alarm?" Lizzie questions.

"Yeah, but it can wait till later." Lizzie pulls away from the hug.

"Guys." Hope calls out.

"You sure?" Lizzie checks.

"I'm sure."

"Is everything all right in there?" Hope questions.

"Yeah, come in Hope." Hope enters our room. "Sorry about that, Lizzie and I were talking."

"It's ok. You guys aren't ready yet?" Hope questions.

"I think the better question is how is it you're already ready. Our alarm just went off like two minutes ago." Lizzie observes.

"I, uh...I couldn't sleep. Got ready kinda early and then waited to come over to your room." Hope says nervously.

"Well, since you're up and at 'em, why don't you go to the cafeteria and save us a table, we'll meet you there." Lizzie says.

"I was, um, hoping I could ah, walk to breakfast with the two of you." Hope continues on nervously.

"Well if you don't mind waiting on us..." I begin to say.

"I'll be right outside...in the hallway." Hope says as she leaves our room and closes our door.

"That...was weird. You sure you don't want to talk about Hope?" Lizzie questions as she looks at the door confused.

"Yeah, I'm sure.

**THE CAFETERIA**

Being inside the cafeteria is the same as yesterday, only I haven't seen Jed in sight. We gather our food onto our trays and find a table to sit at. Lizzie is the first of us to speak as we are sitting down. I'm listening intently to what she's saying, or at least trying to. Every so often I look over and see some of the students whispering, judging by the way their staring at me, it's me their whispering about. I try my best to focus on Lizzie and ignore everyone else around me, but it's getting difficult since every student that walks into the cafeteria starts whispering about me the moment they see me. "Jo, your eyes..." Hope begins.

"They're flashing from total darkness to normal." Lizzie finishes for Hope. I feel my magic rising. I close my eyes and take several breathes to calm myself down. 

"Josie, what's going on?" Hope asks.

"My magic is reacting to my emotions." I answer.

"Your magic?" Hope questions, and Lizzie fills Hope in on everything I told her as I continue to calm myself down. I slowly begin to calm, as I do I am able to hear some of the whispers. Some of the students don't believe I'm not actually back, that I'm still Dark Josie, while a majority of the students are wondering why the Headmaster's would let a killer out.

"You got a lot of nerve showing your face here." I open my eyes at the sound of Jed's voice. I look up and sure enough, Jed is standing by our table, with the same glare he wore last night.

"If you're thinking of starting shit Jed..." My sister starts, but is quickly interrupted by Jed.

"She killed two students and she's the reason two other students are dead, one of them being your boyfriend Hope." Jed gestures towards Hope. "And yet she just strolls on in here as if nothing happened." Jed says angrily. 

"I'm so sorry about Alyssa Jed." I try to apologize, but Jed doesn't want to hear it.

"NO! You don't get to say her name!" Tears begin to form in Jed's eyes. Hope stands from her seat.

"Jed please..." Hope tries to speak, but Jed interrupts her as well.

"Why does she get to walk around freely, while Alyssa's buried six feet in the ground?!" Jed shouts, then he looks back at me. "Why?"

"I..." I start, but go silent. He had a point, after everything I did I shouldn't be able to walk the school so freely. If anyone else had done what I had, they wouldn't be anywhere near the students, they'd be locked up in one of the transition cells for a very, very long time. 

"She isn't free Jed." I turn towards the sound of MG's voice. Everyone looks at him confused, especially Jed and Kaleb, who walked in with MG and is now standing beside him. "She has to live with what she did for the rest of her life. Isn't that punishment enough?" MG questions Jed.

"It doesn't feel like it." Jed says.

"Will it is, trust me." MG steps closer to Jed. "I've known Josie a while now, so you can trust me when I tell you, she hates herself more than you hate her, and she will beat herself up over this for a long, long time." MG places a hand on Jed's shoulder. Jed wipes the tears that have fallen.

"Come on man." Kaleb steps up and wraps an arm around his shoulder. "Let's get some air." Kaleb pulls Jed away from the table and leads him away from the cafeteria. I stand and step over to MG.

"You didn't have to do that." I tell him.

"Yeah, I did. When I finished my detox in the transition cells and came to the cafeteria for the first time, everybody was doing the same thing their doing to you now. Staring, whispering, some even called me a ripper. Everybody except you." MG points to me. "Despite knowing I killed Landon, you pulled me into a tight hug and told me everything was going to be ok. So now, I'm gonna do the same for you." MG explains.

"MG..." MG pulls me into a tight hug.

"Everything's going to be ok. I'm sorry I wasn't there for you, I should have seen something was up." I can't help but cry into the hug. Though I didn't deserve the kindness of my friends, I was glad to have it.

**LATER THAT EVENING, THE TWINS ROOM**

After classes ended and Lizzie and I had finished our homework we had dinner with my parents. Dad was going to be leaving for Europe in two days, so he wanted us to have dinner together until then. While my parents were questioning me about how my day was, I nearly lost control again. I excused myself and fled to mine and Lizzie's room. I sent a magic note to let them know I was fine and to continue on without me. I placed my hands flat on my vanity and looked myself over in the mirror. I could see the darkness on the edges of my eyes. I knew it would be a bad idea to start classes so soon, but since I had missed so much already, my parents insisted I don't miss out on anymore, though a part of my feels like they were hoping classes would bring a sense of normalcy back into my life. A knock on the door interrupts my thoughts and I turn towards it. If it were Lizzie she wouldn't bother knocking, so it had to be a student. Did someone else want to tell me how I shouldn't be walking the school so freely?

"It's me Josie." Hope says from the other end of the door.

"Come on in." I say to her. Hope opens the door and enters the room.

"Lizzie sent me a note to check on you, says you didn't look well and left the dinner table."

"I almost lost control again. My parents were asking about our day, my day. I couldn't bring myself to tell them about what happened in the cafeteria with Jed, or how the other students feel about my return."

"They just need some time. I'm sure in no time they'll see you as kind selfless Josie again." I offer a small smile in response to that. Hope then steps closer to me and holds both my hands in hers.

"If it's all right with you, I'd like to talk to you about something."

"Is it about the Black Magic still coursing inside me, or is it about what you said while you were inside my mind?" I question her, she's taken by surprise at first, then quickly recovers.

"Both." Hope replies. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, originally the next chapter was going to be the final chapter, but as I was writing I realized there's still so much to write about concerning Josie. She went through and did a lot while under the influence of Dark Magic, and I didn't want to sell it short or skip over it. So, next chapter we'll continue to look at Josie's progress, and get a few Hope and Josie moments as well. Hope you enjoyed this chapter, and please let me know what you think in the comments below.


	12. I'M A WORKING PROGRESS

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hope and Josie talk things out. Josie's still adjusting, but making progress.

** I'M A WORKING PROGRESS**

"If it's all right with you, I'd like to talk to you about something."

"Is it about the Black Magic still coursing inside me, or is it about what you said while you were inside my mind?" I question her, she's taken by surprise at first, then quickly recovers.

"Both." Hope replies. I let go of Hope's hand and sit on my bed.

"Do you mind if we just talk about your feeling towards me? It's been on my mind for a while, and judging by your behavior today I think it's been on yours as well. Besides both my parents have insisted I speak with Emma about everything my darker self did, so..." 

"Yeah, no that's fine. I'm sorry about acting weird, I've wanted to talk about it, it just never felt like the right time. I know you're going through a lot, I didn't want to add to it."

"When it comes to feelings there's really never a good time to talk about them, but I don't know if I'm ever going to be ok after all I've done, or if I'll ever go back to the person I was. All I know is it's been on my mind, and I think we've kept ourselves from talking about it long enough." I tell Hope.

"You're right." Hope says. She gets the chair from the vanity and moves it closer to me and sits down. "After constantly being told by your sister, a little self reflection, and a conversation with my subconscious. I realized I have feelings for you, I've had feeling for you for a while. I just didn't realize it because I buried my feeling for you when I was fourteen." Hope looks at me to gauge my reaction, I simply wait for her to continue. "When I first decided to keep my distance from people it was because I had to lie about who I was, especially when we started learning about the history of my family. While I love them, a part of me was ashamed of them because of everything they did, everything my dad did." Hope reaches out and grabs hold of my hand. "Believe me, I wanted to be friends with you and Lizzie, and when I developed a crush on you I wanted you to be my girlfriend, but I was afraid if you found out who I really was, who I was related to, you'd hate me and I couldn't risk it. And then my parents and uncle died and I really closed myself off. I figured if I didn't have attachments I'd stop losing people. And then you and I had community service together, and in one conversation my feelings for you began to unravel. I probably would have realized my feeling for your sooner, but..."

"Landon." I say for her. 

"Yeah." There's a silence between us for a moment before Hope continues. "The week of your birthday, I never meant to avoid you, or ignore you..."

"Hope..." I interrupt, only to get interrupted by Hope.

"I was just jealous." I look at Hope with a confused expression. "I was jealous of the fact that you two were getting close, I thought she was going to take you away from me, so I did what I do best and shut myself off from you." Tears begin to fall from Hope's eyes. "I'm so sorry Josie." 

"Come here." I pull Hope towards me. She sits beside me and I hold on to her as she cries. "I'm the one that needs to apologize. I nearly killed you all, and despite that you still tried to save me."

"I'll always save you Josie, no matter what." Hope says, and I hold on to her tighter knowing that to be true. 

**FIVE MONTHS LATER**

_"We should probably get rid of the evidence, huh." I smirk at her and snap my fingers, the bus catches fire. "But you're not, you're not my mother." I see tears forming in Caroline's eyes. "You are nothing more than a surrogate." "Glad we can end things on good terms." I raise my hand and flick it slightly, forcing Jade's heart out of her chest and into my hand. Jade desiccates and falls to the ground dead._ I sit up awake breathing heavily. It had five months since I left the cell, but what I had done as Dark Josie still haunted me. The first month was filled with nightmares, as time went on the nightmares slowed, but every so often they'd make an appearance. I look over at my sister to make sure I hadn't woken her up, once I confirm she's still asleep I get out of bed and put on some shoes. I make my way to the bathroom to wash my face and head out to the garden. I pick out some flowers and walk towards the school's grave site. It was still dark, but the sun was beginning to rise. I walk up to Jade's tombstone and place the flowers I picked on her grave. I was still under the sleeping spell during her funeral, but after I managed to leave the transition cell I made sure to visit her grave as often as I could. 

"I dreamed about you today, the time we spent together after we left the school, the day I killed you. I know I wasn't myself, but a part of me still can't believe I was capable of that. You were the only one that was there for me when no one else was, the only one who saw that something was wrong, and in return for your kindness I shut off your humanity, watched as you killed people, even encouraged it, and when I grew tired of you I killed you without a second thought." I place a hand on her tombstone, tears are forming in my eyes. "I'm so, so sorry. I don't think I'll ever be able to apologize enough for what I did." I sob.

"I have a feeling she'd forgive you." I turn around at the sound of Hope's voice. I see her approaching me, I wipe the tears from my eyes.

"Lizzie?" I question, she nods her head yes as she stands beside me wrapping her arm around me.

After our talk five months ago, we both agreed it was too soon to get into a relationship, but that didn't stop us from getting closer. She kept her promise about keeping my family and our friends in line. And anytime one of the students made a comment about my time as Dark Josie, she was quick to defend me. I had to admit, I was falling for her again, but I didn't want to risk losing her by rushing into things. While I was getting better, there were still some things I needed to work on, but that didn't seem to bother her, she encouraged me to take my time and promised to wait for me. A part of me was grateful for that, while another part of me felt like she deserved someone who wasn't broken, someone who could make her happy. "Did you love her?" Hope asks, interrupting my thoughts.

"What?" I ask.

"Did you love her?" I don't respond right away, and that makes Hope nervous, so she steps away from me. "Not that I'm jealous or anything, just curious."

"Hope it's fine." I reassure her and she relaxes. "I liked her, a lot. And I think if I hadn't gone dark and shut off her humanity we could have actually fallen in love." I look down at her tombstone with a sad expression on my face, Hope notices this and takes hold of my hand. She stays with me until I'm ready to leave the grave site, and walks me to my room.

**LATER THAT AFTERNOON. EMMA'S OFFICE**

"I'm glad to see you making progress Josie." Emma compliments. I've had to come for a session with Emma once a week since I left the transition cells, while it's hard to talk about what I did, it's helped a little. 

"Thanks, that means a lot."

"How have the students been treating you, are they starting to trust you again?" Emma asks.

"Besides the Super Squad, some are talking to me again, not very many. A majority of the student body is still wary of me, though I can't blame them. I did kill two students."

"Give them time, they'll come around. Forgiveness and trust comes easy for some, for others it takes a bit longer to gain." Emma explains.

"Yeah I know."

"I see things are better with your family and friends." Emma observes.

"Yeah, it's been great having mom back, we always have dinner with her once a week, and dad's made sure to call every weekend to check in. Lizzie's been pretty good at putting me first, she's had a few slip ups, but Hope's always quick to get on her."

"Yes, I've noticed the two of you have grown closer since your return. If you don't mind me asking, are the two of you together?" Emma asks.

"No, I mean she admitted to having feeling for me, and if I'm being honest I've even begun to have feelings for her as well..."

"But?" Emma presses.

"I'm a working progress. Though I'm slowly picking up the pieces, I still feel broken. I'm still having nightmares, and there's still blood on my hands. She said she'd wait until I was ready, but I'm not sure I'll ever be ready to be in a relationship with Hope. It'd just feel like I'd be bringing her down."

"While I agree you are a work in progress, I'm afraid I'll have to disagree with you being broken. In my opinion you're just trying to find yourself again, and I think Hope can help you with that." Emma explains.

"Are you encouraging me to enter a romantic relationship with Hope?"

"I'm saying Hope's been where you are now. If you recall she had Dark Magic inside of her as well, she knows what you're going through and I think she could help you. You don't have to enter into a romantic relationship with her Josie, just let her in, even if it's just a little." Emma voices.

**DINNER TIME, CAFETERIA**

After classes ended for the day Hope, Lizzie, and I walked to the cafeteria together for dinner. We were the last of the squad to sit at our usual table. Things were going well at first, we were eating and talking, until I looked up and saw Jed staring at me. He was the only member of Super Squad who hadn't spoken to me. He still hated me for Alyssa, I've tried apologizing and talking to him with no luck. I think it's taking everything in his power to not hurt or kill me. After a minute of staring at each other he gather's his tray and tosses it to be washed. The pack calls out to him, but he ignores them and leaves the cafeteria. I look down at my food sadden by the whole thing, I suddenly feel a hand on my shoulder, it's Hope's hand.

"Just ignore him, he'll either come around or he won't." Hope tells me.

"Screw that, he needs to get over it already." Lizzie states while stabbing her food.

"Seriously Lizzie?" Kaleb questions.

"He's mourning someone who never really cared about him." Lizzie explains.

"It doesn't matter, he cared for her." Kaleb states.

"He wasn't the only one." I say and Kaleb immediately turns to me. "You lost her too, I'm really sorry Kaleb." Kaleb looks down for a moment, saddened by my apology, then looks back up at me.

"You're right, I did care about her, and I was angry when you killed her, but you're back now so we're cool...Besides, I doubt anything would have happened between Alyssa and I, she was super into MG." Kaleb says light-heartedly towards the end.

"Seriously?" Lizzie questions.

"It's true, she said so herself." Hope says. 

"Could we maybe talk about something else." MG asks hopeful, but everyone continues to talk about Alyssa's crush on MG, admittedly it brings a smile to my face.

**THE NEXT MORNING, SCHOOL'S GRAVE SITE**

The next morning I went back to the grave site to visit with Jade again. Emma's words had been eating at me last night I hadn't been able to sleep. I was nearing the end of yesterday's conversation when I felt someone watching me. I look up and swept the grave site when I spot Jed glaring at me with amber eyes and clenched fists. He seems more angry than usual, it was then I realized that tomorrow is the full moon, and as it draws near he'll be feeling it's effects. "Jed?" He stalks up to me and grabs me roughly. 

"Bring her back." Jed demands.

"What?" I question.

"Bring back Alyssa, I know you still have Dark Magic inside of you, which means you have the power to bring her back, so do it." Jed demands again.

"Just because I have the power doesn't mean it makes it any easier. Not to mention a spell such as that usually comes with some pretty serious consequences, and sacrifice."

"Like a life for a life." Jed states knowingly. Clearly he's been doing his research. "These past few months all you've done is apologize. I don't want an apology, I want her back, so do whatever you have to do, prepare whatever you have to prepare and bring her back." Jed continues to demand.

"Jed..." I begin to say only to get slapped across the face.

"Bring her back." Jed says a bit louder.

"She wouldn't be the same person Jed." I try to explain only to get slapped again.

"BRING HER BACK!" Jed exclaims.

"I really am sorry Jed." I apologize, only to get slapped again. This last hit brings me down, I look up at Jed and feel my eyes darken. I close them and shake my head to gain some sort of control. When I open my eyes again I see Jed getting ready to hit me again. It feels like time slows down, I see his raised hand come towards my face, it's inches away when he's thrown back by an invisible force. I turn and see a very angry Hope, both her werewolf and vampire features on display. Jed stands on his feet, Hope walks towards him, I stand and stop her from reaching him.

"Hope stop." I plead.

"He hurt you." She growls.

"The full moon's tomorrow Hope, you're both feeling it's effects. Please..." Hope seems to relax at my second attempt to plead with her. "Just let him go, it isn't worth it." She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath in.

"Go back to the school and cool off Jed." Jed turns around, he's about to walk off, but Hope's not finished. "And if you ever come near Josie again, nothing and no one will stop me from killing you." I see Jed tense at Hope's threat, then he walks back to the school. Hope focuses back on me and inspects the injuries on my face. She bites into her wrist and offers it to me.

"No, its fine..."

"Please..." Hope asks. I take her wrist and drink the blood offered. After a second I let go of her wrist and feel my injuries heal. Hope inspects my face again before pulling me into a tight hug, I hug her back and thank her for saving my life once again. 

**HOPE'S ROOM**

After the incident at the grave site, Hope brought me to her room, she had held my hand the entire walk over and hadn't let go until we got to her room and she sat me down on her bed. She's been quiet the entire time, and now she's pacing back in forth in front of the bed. I wait five minutes for her speak up, I open my mouth to ask what's on her mind but she beats me to it. "Why didn't you fight back?" Hope stops her pacing and asks.

"You know why Hope." I reply.

"How long do you plan on punishing yourself?" Hope questions.

"How long did you punish yourself for your parents death?" I answer with a question, Hope has an annoyed look on her face.

"Touche'." Hope says with a smile. She then walks up to me and kneels in front of me, taking hold of both my hands. "I don't want you to punish yourself though, as you recall doing that led to me shutting everyone out, and I don't want that for you."

"Believe me, I couldn't do that even if I wanted to. Lizzie wouldn't let me." Hope laughs at that. "Neither would you for that matter."

"No, I wouldn't." Hope stares up at me, I stare down at her. We stare at each other for a moment before Hope surges up and kisses me.

She lays me down on her bed, one hand on my cheek while the other is on my waist. Both my hands are wrapped around her neck, we kiss until I realize what's going on, I push her back with one hand to stop the kiss. When I do Hope realizes what happened and immediately backs up away from me.

"I'm so sorry Josie, I didn't mean to..." Hope starts.

"It's ok Hope."

"No, it's not. I told you I'd wait until you were ready, and I just kissed you without even thinking." Hope rants.

"And I kissed you back."

"And you kissed me back." Hope stops and looks at me with realization in her eyes. "You kissed me back." Hope says with a smile.

"I stayed up all night tossing and turning thinking about you. I have feelings for you Hope, I just wasn't sure if I was ready to pursue a relationship with you yet."

"And now?" Hope asks.

"I'm still not sure if I'll ever be ready, but I won't ever know unless I try." Hope looks at me with anticipation in her eyes. "Hope Andrea Mikaelson, would you go out on a date with me this weekend?" Hope smiles at my question.

"I would love to go on a date with you this weekend."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, readers we are coming to an end of this fic, next chapter will be the last. The entire chapter will be Hosie, so if there is something you want to see, or if you have any suggestions let me know in the comments. Hope you enjoyed this chapter.


	13. ALWAYS AND FOREVER

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The final chapter guys. Enjoy.

**ALWAYS AND FOREVER**

**SATURDAY NIGHT, MYSTIC GRILL**

It had been two days since I asked Hope out on a date with me. As soon as I told Lizzie she had insisted on dressing me and doing my hair and makeup. She even lent me the car (Even though technically it was gifted to the both of us). Almost three hours later I'm finally at the Mystic Grill with Hope, looking over the menu. The waiter comes by and places our milkshakes on the table, both Hope and I order burgers and fries. Once the waiter has taken our order, he leaves us. I'm about to take a sip of my milkshake, when I notice Hope looking at me with a shocked expression. "Since when do you eat burgers? I thought you avoided eating meat?" Hope questions.

"I did, but I broke that habit when I crossed over to the dark side." I explain. Hope chuckles at my explanation. 

"Really?" Hope asks, and I nod my head yes. "What else changed while you were on the dark side?" Hope asks as she takes a sip of her milkshake.

"Everything, and nothing at the same time. It was like a part of me just wanted to let loose, do things I was too scared or too shy to do. But there was also another side of me that just wanted to relax and enjoy a good book." 

"Have you told your parents you still have dark magic inside you?" Hope asks.

"No, but I have a feeling they already know. I think their trusting that I know what I'm doing, or they just simply don't want to bring it up unless they have to."

"It's probably the latter." Hope comments.

"Yeah probably." I repeat. Hope hold up her milkshake.

"To you. Very few people some back from the darkness, and those who do struggle with it everyday. You however, make it look effortless." I raise my milkshake alongside Hope's.

To the person who rescued me from the darkness in the first place." Hope smiles at that, and we clink our glasses together.

**AN HOUR LATER, TOWN SQUARE**

After dinner Hope and I agreed we didn't want to go back to the school just yet. We decided to walk around town and talk more, hand in hand. We walked around until we found ourselves in the middle of Town Square, Hope takes a seat on one of the benches under a tree. I stand a little longer inspecting the bench. Hope gives me a questioning look and takes my hand to gain my attention. "Hey is everything ok?" Hope asks, I blink twice and look over at her and smile.

"Yeah, it's just...if I'm not mistaken..." I step up to the bench and motion Hope to move over. "This is the bench with a plaque dedicated to my grandmother, Elizabeth Forbes. She was the sheriff before Machado and Donovan.

"Oh yeah, Lizzie's named after her right?" Hope asks.

"Yeah. Mom told us stories about her, she sounded like such a badass. I think it would have been cool to meet her." I say as I sit next to Hope.

"Besides seeing my parents again, I don't really have any family I'd like to meet." Hope comments.

"Not even Esther?" I ask, and Hope looks at me with a 'really' look. "I mean, I know she was a pretty terrible mother, but she was also a pretty badass witch. I mean she created vampires, she created the Moonstones for wolves, she was one of very few people who could actually kill your dad. There has to be a part of you that would be a little curious to meet her."

"You make a fair point, but I have a feeling if I ever met her, she'd try to kill me." Hope states matter of factly.

"Yeah probably." I say. Hope takes hold of my hand, leans back, and looks up towards the sky. I mimic her and we stay in comfortable silence for a moment.

"This was a pretty great night." Hope says and I nod in agreement. "Do you know what would make it better?" I turn to Hope and wait for her to tell me. If you'd dance with me." I smile at Hope's cheesiness. Hope gets up and extends her hand to me, before I take it I mutter a spell. When I take her hand, Jazz music fills the air. Hope looks around confused before looking at me.

"Don't worry, we're the only ones that can hear it." Hope smiles and pulls me closer. We spend the next hour dancing under the stars. 

**SALVATORE SCHOOL, THE NEXT MORNING**

I was having a pleasant dream about Josie and I dancing under the stars when I heard a sudden knock on my door. I slowly open my eyes, and wonder if I really hear a knock on my door. My question is answered when I hear it again. I quickly look at the time and see it's eight in the morning. I get up and open my door, to my shock it was Caroline who had been knocking.

"Mrs. Forbes?"

"Alaric told me about your training, thought you might want to train with me." Caroline explains herself.

"I don't mind, but I don't normally train on the weekends."

"I know, but since your a new born vampire, I figured training would help control your urges." In that moment I smelled human blood. Caroline hands me a blood bag. "I'll see you at the docks. Caroline turns and leaves.

I close the door and uncap the blood bag, quickly draining it of blood. I then get dressed in my work out clothes and meet Caroline at the docks. The moment I set foot on the docks, Caroline came at me. While Alaric was more calculating, Caroline was more direct. She didn't hold back, and she definitely did not show any mercy. An hour into the training session I lost track of how many times she threw me on the ground.

"Is this really a training session, or is this your way of giving me the shovel talk?" Caroline laughs at that and helps me to my feet.

"No, I know I won't have to have that talk with you. Just thought you might like a change of pace. While Alaric is quite skilled, he is still human."

"It did feel nice not having to hold back." I admit. Caroline walks over to a small ice chest and gets out two blood bags. She tosses one to me, and takes one for herself. "Not that I don't appreciate it, but why are you giving me human blood? It's not allowed."

"Alaric is the one who insisted on that rule. I only went along with it because I thought he made some valid points, but after hearing about MG and Jade...well lets just say changes are in order." Caroline answers. 

"While I'm all for it, is it really the best idea. I mean just the smell of human blood causes MG to lose control." 

"It'll be an adjustment, but if student vampires don't learn control here, they'll never learn control, and the only way to do that is by exposure." Caroline replies. I nod my head at that and drink the blood bag.

"What did you mean when you said you you knew you wouldn't have to give me the shovel talk?" Caroline slightly chuckles at my question.

"While your family can be quite evil and ruthless, they also love deeply. I know you'll love my daughter with your entire being, and that you'll do anything to protect her.?"

"I will." I say to her. Caroline finishes her blood bag and picks up the ice chest.

"I got to get going, I have graduation invites to prepare." Caroline says and she walks in the direction of the school.

"Graduation invites? Wait, is graduation still happening?"

**THE TWINS BEDROOM**

"Josie." I hear my sister calling me, but I'm too tired to answer. "Josie." Calls out again, and then she pokes my cheeks. I turn over and continue to ignore her. "Josie!" My sister exclaims.

"What?" I ask as I sit up.

"How'd your date with Hope go?" Lizzie asks innocently. As if she didn't just yell in my ear while I was trying to sleep.

"Couldn't this wait until I woke up?"

"No, I want details. What'd you guys do?" I let out a heavy sigh and sit up on my bed. Lizzie sits next to me and places her head on my shoulder.

"We went to the Mystic Grill, had dinner and milkshakes. Then we walked around town for a bit, and then we dance under the stars."

"That's it?" Lizzie questions.

"I may have also used a spell that played Jazz music that only we could hear."

"I think that might have been the only cool part of that date." Lizzie comments, clearly not impressed.

"Well, I thought it was perfect."

"As long as you had a good time, and Hope was on her best behavior. That's all that matters." Lizzie stand from my bed. "Now that we gotten that out of the way, get ready." 

"For what?"

"We're helping mom today. She's gotta do invitations for graduation." Lizzie says as she checks her hair and walks out our door. 

"Wait, is graduation still happening?" 

**LATER THAT EVENING, HOPE'S ROOM**

I was laying on my bed, staring at the ceiling when I heard a knock on my door. "Who is it?" I ask. Not in the mood to get up from my bed.

"It's me." Josie answers. I immediately sit up.

"Come in." Josie enters my room looking exhausted. I scoot over and gesture her to join me. Josie doesn't argue and lays down next to me. "You know you don't have to knock right, you can come in whenever you want." I tell her.

"Old habits." Josie says as she curls into me. I wrap my arm around her and hold her tightly. "I love my mom and sister, but sometimes they can be crazy."

"Does this have anything to do with graduation?" 

"Yeah. We helped mom draft, print, and mail graduation invites." Josie replies.

"Was one sent to my parents?"

"Yep." Josie answers.

"I can't believe I forgot about graduation. Hell, I can't believe I'm actually graduating."

"Why not?" Josie asks.

"Between the monsters, Malivore, you, not to mention that time I was wiped from existence. I just didn't think I'd graduate on time."

"You're one of the smartest people here at the school. I'm not surprised you're graduation." Josie comments.

"There's also the matter of us. We just got together, had our first date. I don't want to be apart from you."

"Neither do I." Josie and I lay in silence for a moment before Josie perks her head up.

"What is it?"

"I have an idea. It's going to suck slightly because you're still going to graduate and leave me, but this may make it bearable." Josie says.

"Well that's not helping the current situation." 

"Just hear me out. What if you helped my dad find a way to stop the Merge?" I perk my head at this. "We'd be apart, but something tells me with your help, you might be able to find the answers my parents have been looking for." Josie explains, I contemplate her idea for a minute.

"Plus...when you visit during school breaks, since we'll be overseas, it'll be romantic."

"Exactly. And during the rest of the school year, we'll astral project. That's what Lizzie and I did while she was in Europe. It won't be the same as being physically near each other, but it's pretty close." Josie says.

"I'll suppose." Josie leans down and kisses me.

"We're going to be fine. We've been through worse." Josie says in comfort. I lean up and capture Josie's lips in mine. 

**TIME JUMP, GRADUATION DAY**

"Chop, chop everybody. Today's graduation day, that means no slacking from anyone." Lizzie orders. It's graduation day at the Salvatore School, Lizzie is of course setting up the decorations, while I'm making sure we have everyone's diploma's. "Hey, you have vampire speed use it. We only have a couple of hours before guests arrive." Lizzie yells at a vampire and he speeds off. Lizzie walks over to me and slams her clip board on the table. "I'm surrounded by idiots." Lizzie states.

"Just a few more hours Lizzie, we got this." I say to her. Lizzie takes a deep calming breathe.

"You're right. You're absolutely right." Lizzie picks up the clip board again. "Ok, what's next on the list?" As Lizzie looks down at the clip board, I look up and notice Hope's family enter the auditorium. I immediately panic and drop down on the floor to hide. Lizzie notices and kneels beside me. "Uh, what are you doing?"

"Hope's family just arrived."

"So?" Lizzie questions.

"So, last time I saw them I was Dark Josie. I said a lot of mean things, and I'm pretty sure I snapped her aunt and uncle's necks."

"Oh yeah, you totally did that." Lizzie laughs. "Wait, do they know you and Hope are dating?"

"Of course we do darling." Rebekah answers. I jump up and let out a squeal. 

"Hello Josie. You look well." Freya appears behind her sister.

"Why are you on the floor?" Kol asks.

"I uh...I dropped something." I answer, the Mikaelson family just looks at me curiously. I stand up and dust off my skirt. "Hope's in her room getting ready for the ceremony. Do you know the way to her room?"

"Yes, but we'd love it if you escorted us Josie. We have much to talk about." Rebekah says sweetly.

"It was nice knowing you sis." Lizzie says before she skips away. I turn to her and open and close my mouth. I then turn to the Mikaelson family and smile nervously at them.

"Don't worry sweetie, they don't bite." Davina says.

"At least not anymore." Keelin adds. Both her and Davina laugh. I let out a small chuckle.

"This way." I gesture towards the exit, and we walk towards Hope's room.

"Hope says you've been doing much better since we saw you last." Rebekah comments.

"Yeah..." I stop and turn to them. "I'm sorry for everything. You all were trying to help me and in return I attacked you."

"You've nothing to apologize for. From what I understand it wasn't your fault. Besides, we've been through worse." Freya shrugs off.

"I do have a question though." I turn to Kol. "Is it true you still have all that black magic inside of you?" Kol asks. I smile and my eyes shift to black.

"Just a little." My eyes return to normal. "We should keep going, Hope's room is close." I say as I turn around and continue towards Hope's room.

"Fascinating." Davina says amazed.

"We should invite her over some time. Imagine all the things she can do now." Kol says excitedly.

"Reign it in a bit Kol. She's just a kid, plus she's dating your niece. I don't think Hope would like you taking up too much of her time." Keelin says as they follow Josie.

**HOPE'S ROOM**

Today's the day I finally graduate from Salvatore. I still don't know how I managed to pull it off, but here I am. Looking over my graduation gown for the hundredth time. However, my thoughts are interrupted by the dock on my door. "Hope it's me." I hear Josie say through the door. 

"How many times do I have to tell you, you don't have to knock. You can just walk in."

"I thought it was rather considerate and sweet." I hear Rebekah say. I turn around just in time to see my family along with Josie enter my room. 

"You all made it." I say as I rush them.

"Of course we did kiddo." Keelin says.

"Your parents would have our heads if we missed this." Davina adds.

"We just wanted to see you before everything got crazy." Marcel says. Rebekah cups my cheeks.

"We are so proud of you. And we know your parents and Elijah would be proud of you too." Tears form in my eyes. Rebekah hugs me tightly then kisses my forehead. The rest of my family follow suite.

"Alright, we'll give you and your girlfriend a moment. Don't do anything I wouldn't do." Kol teases. Both Josie and I blush.

"Ok, that's enough. Let's go find some good seats." Freya says as she pushes everyone out of my room. 

"Wow, seeing your family like this makes me wonder how my dad ever saw them as evil." Josie comments after my family leaves. 

"They try to behave on special occasions." Josie smiles at that

"So...I have a gift for you." Josie says nervously.

"Ok." Josie pulls out a talisman and hands it to me. "This is beautiful Josie." 

"It's spelled."

"What does it do?" I ask.

"Well, if you ever find yourself missing me, just activate it." Josie waves her hand over the talisman and it begins to glow. "And wherever you are, I'll be there in person." I look at Josie shocked.

"Like, physically there in person?" I double check, Josie nods her head yes.

"A year is a long time to be apart. And all these scenarios made their way into my head, which cause me to feel a bit insecure..." I quickly close the gap between us and wrap my arms around Josie, holding her tightly.

"Whatever scenarios you thought up in your head, I promise you none of them will come true. You're stuck with my Josette Saltzman." Josie wraps her arms around me as well and holds me just as tight. 

**GRADUATION CEREMONY**

"Good afternoon parents. Before we get started I wanted to say a few words." Alaric begins, he clears his throat and continues with his speech. "The students have been through a lot. As I'm sure you all were made aware, we had a bit of a monster problem, and unfortunately we did lose students. But despite the chaos, despite the loss, these students, your children pulled through. They stuck together, and fought beside each other. I am proud to have been their Headmaster, and I know when they leave this school. They are going to be better than ok, their going to be their best selves." The parents stand and clap for their children, while the students are wiping their tears away.

"I'm so glad dad was able to make it." Lizzie says. I look over at Hope, who is still wiping tears from her eyes.

"He wouldn't have missed this for the world." I say to Lizzie. 

**MYSTIC GRILL, AFTER THE GRADUATION CEREMONY**

"Smile." Rebekah says as she takes another picture of me holding my diploma.

"How much longer must I endure this?" I ask while still smiling.

"Don't complain. Not all of us graduated from school. Now, let's include your friends." Rebekah turns to the Super Squad. "Come now, gather around." The Super Squad gathers around me while my family snaps photo's of us. 

"Alright now, lets get some pics of the two love birds." Marcel says. Josie and I look at each other with blushes covering our faces, while our friends are laughing at us. We wrap our arms around each other and smile for the camera's. After a few photo's Josie plants a kiss on my cheek, which causes me to blush even more, while my family just snaps a photo and laughs at me. 

"Alright, I thing we got enough photo's to last us a lifetime. Let's order dinner and eat, I'm sure the kids are hungry." Freya finally interjects.

"Starving." MG says. He picks up the menu and starts scanning through it, along with everyone else. 

"Did you have a good day?" Josie asks me. I can't help but smile at her.

"The best." I answer as I reach for the talisman Josie gave to me.

**10 MONTHS LATER**

Shortly after graduating from Salvatore, I joined Alaric on recruitment missions. Turns out Caroline's cover story wasn't a complete lie, while she was looking for a way to stop the Merge, she was also recruiting. Alaric and I spent ten months looking over Caroline's research, coming up empty, and only recruiting a handful of students before we finally got a lead. 

It turns out, not all members of the Gemini Coven died when Kai killed himself at Alaric's wedding. While in Berlin, we came across distant relatives of the twins. Back in the early days of the coven, there were a set of twins who refused to Merge. Right before their twenty-second birthday, they broke the curse. When news broke of what they had done, the coven was furious, fearing the twins may have upset the ancestors, they were kicked out of the coven. Shortly after, they unlinked themselves from them. Since then their descendants have been living in Berlin. Unfortunately, they refused to give us any more information until they spoke to the last members of the Gemini coven, the twins.

Currently, Alaric is in his hotel room phoning Caroline telling her the news. He wanted to discuss our findings with her before telling the twins, but I can't keep this from Josie. I activate the talisman and wait nervously for Josie to show up. Luckily it's the weekend, so I don't have to wait long for her to appear. When she does I immediately engulf her in a hug and spin her around. She giggles at my antics, and when I place her down she kisses me in greeting. 

"Hi." Josie greets me.

"Hey, come sit with me I have something to tell you." I lead Josie onto the bed where we both sit down. "So, I have what may be good news, but we won't know for sure until you and your sister come to Berlin." Josie looks confused.

"Mom hasn't mentioned anything about Lizzie and I visiting." Josie comments.

"That's because your dad is on the phone with her now, telling her about the lead we just came across." Josie perks up at this.

"I'm listening." Josie says, giving me her undivided attention.

"A few centuries back, one of your descendants actually found a way to stop the Merge, but because they broke tradition they were kicked out of the coven. They unlinked themselves and settled here in Berlin." I can see Josie trying to contain her excitement at this news.

"How did they break the curse?" Josie asks.

"They won't tell us, not until they speak to you and Lizzie. Their pretty private and secretive with their magic, which according to your father is typical."

"Do you think their telling the truth?" Josie asks.

"They didn't seem to be lying, though I do find it strange that when the curse was broken. It only only seemed to affect the twins that were merging at the time."

"They were probably the only set of twins at the time. And when they got kicked out, they took the cure for the curse with them, so merging continued once another set of twins were born." 

"Probably, we won't know anything for sure until you and Lizzie speak with them. They made it clear they weren't going to give us anymore information until they spoke with the two of you."

"Mom will probably talk to us tomorrow then." Josie says.

"Probably, just when she does act surprised. I wasn't supposed to tell you yet. Your dad wanted to talk it over with your mom first."

"Typical." I smile at Josie's comment. "So, besides possibly finding a solution to the whole Merge problem, what else have you been up to?" Josie questions. I look over at my bag, debating wither or not to give Josie the item I had purchased after meeting the former Gemini witches. "Hope?" I turn back to look at Josie. "What's got you so nervous? Are you cheating on me?"

"What? No Josie I swear..." I notice Josie attempting to hide her laughter.

"Sorry, you just seemed so nervous, I thought I'd try to loosen you up." I smile and shake my head at her.

"So, when we first got here, I saw something in one of the shops your father and I passed by." I stand and head over to my bag. "I looked at it briefly and debated purchasing it, before I was on my way." I open up the bag and dig around it for a bit. "Then today, we passed by the shop again, and the item I saw was still there." I find what I'm looking for, and hide it behind my back as I approach Josie. "Between the meeting your father and I had today, to passing by the shop. I kinda took it as a sign to buy it and give it to you."

"Ok? What is it?" Josie asks nervously. 

"I know you don't like to think too far ahead about the future because of the whole Merge thing. And despite still having questions about the current situation, I have a feeling things are going to work out." I reveal a tiny black box to Josie and open it up. Josie looks from the box to me in surprise. "It's a promise ring. I know we're still young, and we have our whole lives ahead of us, but I know in my heart that your it for me. So...Josette Saltzman, will you be my always and forever someday?" Josie has tears in her eyes.

"Hope..."

"Please say yes. Like I said, this is only a promise ring, we don't have to rush into anything..." Josie shuts me up with a kiss

"Of course I'll be your always and forever. You're it for me too Hope." I smile widely at that. I place the promise ring on her ring finger and kiss her. I pour all my love for Josie into that kiss, and I feel Josie do the same. I say a silent prayer to my mother, telling her I finally found my epic love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's the end readers. Thank you to all who stuck with this fic from beginning to end. Please let me know what you thought of the last chapter, or the fic in general in the comments below. And if you haven't already, please check out my other HOSIE fic, TVD Paradox.


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